Saying Good-Bye to Yesterday
by roslinadama-sinequanon
Summary: This is the sequel to "Christmas in Connecticut" and will focus on the characters putting their pasts behind them, mainly Sharon and Andy gaining closure on their first marriages through their annulments, but also in a variety of other ways. It will weave in and out of season 5 canon and AU (Winnie Davis) and I will rearrange some of the storylines to fit my own.
1. Chapter 1

"Wait," Emily grabbed Ricky's wrist, stopping him just as he was about to knock on the door of their father's apartment. Unlike their mother's condominium, they would never think of just entering as if it were their home, even if they had had a key. Nothing about Jack Raydor had ever spoken of home.

"What's the matter?" Ricky paused and looked down into his sister's worried eyes. "You look nervous."

"Of course I'm nervous. I don't know how you can be so calm. Dad is not going to take this well. He hasn't even gotten over Andy moving in with Mom yet, every time I talk to him it's like all he can focus on. In his own warped way, I think he still loves her."

"Well, she doesn't still love him."

"Ricky…" She pleaded for understanding, but Ricky no longer had it in him.

"I'm sorry, Em. I don't feel sorry for him. Mom gave him dozens of chances to get his life together and he fucked it up every time. He's the one who went away and stayed away for years as if we didn't even exist."

"I know that and I know she doesn't love him anymore and that she deserves so much better—and that she'll get that with Andy. That doesn't mean…well…I just don't want him to start drinking again."

"Do you honestly think he stopped?"

Emily turned away. She would love to contradict him but she was the one who had come face to face with the damning evidence. Two years ago at Christmas when she'd been forced to stay at Jack's because there wasn't enough room at her mother's condo for everyone she had found several empty bottles of booze in his trash and brought it to her two brother's attention. The plan to hide it from their unsuspecting mother later backfired when Jack turned up drunk at her condo, eliciting an 'I told you so' from Rusty who had been the only one against the plan to keep it from their mom. Since then she'd had a few phone calls from Jack when she was sure he was three sheets to the wind, most of those calls taking place after Andy moved in with her mother. Still, she always hoped.

"Look," Ricky turned her back to face him, his voice softer. "I know it's hard but we can't take responsibility for how Dad handles the things that upset him in his life. Yeah, he's going to be pissed, but we have to do this…for Mom. It's up to him how he handles it."

"I know." His raised skeptical eyebrow at her softly spoken response caused her to stiffen her resolve. "I do know, Ricky, I really do." Al-Anon meetings and the family counseling she'd attended with her mother and brother had taught her that they weren't responsible for their father's actions, but that didn't make it any easier. She nodded toward the door taking a deep breath. "Go ahead."

Ricky steeled his shoulders and knocked. Despite his calm façade, he too knew they were in for a confrontation.

"Well, well, well, my prodigal children." Jack opened the door to let the two of them into his apartment with a sweeping theatrical gesture.

"Hey Dad, Merry Christmas." Emily stepped up to kiss his cheek. Why was it that something as simple as that was still awkward?

When Ricky didn't follow suit with a hug, Jack held a hand out to him. "Merry Christmas, son."

Ricky nodded and shook his hand trying to swallow his bitterness and not to think of all the Christmas's his father had missed.

"So," Jack led them into the small bare living room. "How was your big New England family Christmas?" Poison fairly oozed from his pores.

Emily ignored his sarcasm and answered as if the question had been genuine. "It was great, we had a wonderful time."

"Your grandparents are still well?"

"Very well."

"And your mother and her _boyfriend_?" The siblings exchanged an apprehensive look. As expected, Jack was not going to make this easy.

"That's what we came to talk to you about."

"Did your mother finally come to her senses and kick Andy to the curb?" Jack's grin was damn near gleeful.

"Not exactly."

"They're getting married," Ricky stated it bluntly, taking an almost perverse pleasure in knocking the shit-eating grin off his father's face. His whole life, he'd tried to understand Jack, tried to figure out what made him tick, but now he knew he never would. Jack was the one who had walked away from their family, leaving his mother in a pile of debt to raise two children on her own, yet she had done nothing but try to help him each time he had come crawling back and this was the way he repaid her? By taking pleasure in the thought that a relationship meaning so much to her had ended? It made him sick to his stomach.

His arrogance deflated, Jack looked confused, almost lost, the overwhelming pain in his chest limiting comprehension. "What did you just say." He'd heard what Ricky had said loud and clear, he just couldn't believe it

"Andy asked Mom to marry him and she said yes," Emily answered.

Jack leaned back in his chair still looking like he had taken a kick to the solar plexus. His wife was getting married…To Andy Flynn. This is exactly what he'd been afraid of when Sharon asked for a divorce. It took a few moments but once the initial shock wore off his mind began scrambling, trying to find a way out of this. That's when the grin came back. "She's not going to marry Andy. She can divorce me and still receive the sacraments, but she can't remarry in the church, and if she remarries outside the church, she can say bye-bye to receiving Holy Communion. I know your mother. She won't do that."

"She will," Emily's voice was barely louder than a whisper. "You don't know her as well as you think you do. She's marrying Andy, Dad, whatever the consequences. She's wearing his engagement ring. This is real."

Jack stared at his daughter in disbelief. Was Sharon really so deeply in love with that skirt-chaser Flynn that she would actually turn her back on the church? Prickles of panic crawled along his skin, his stomach knotting in agony. It was the same way he had felt when Sharon pushed divorce papers at him. And just as it happened then, when he was at a loss and couldn't find a way to fight back, his eyes narrowed, his face tightened, and he got mean.

"I suppose you two are happy about this," he accused.

Emily shrank back from the venomous words, but Ricky did not. "Yes. We're very happy, thank you for asking. We both like Andy a lot. He's good for Mom and he really loves her. He makes her laugh. In my whole life, I've never seen her the way she is when they're together. She deserves to be loved and she deserves to be happy."

"But you were right about the church," Emily said quickly before Jack could argue that point. "She's going to marry Andy no matter what, but she really wants to marry him in the church."

"Which brings us to why we are here." Ricky handed Jack a folder.

Jack grabbed his reading glasses and opened it. "An annulment!" He exploded. "Are you two out of your god- damned minds?"

Emily flinched causing Ricky to set a firm hand on his father's arm in warning. "Hey, Dad, watch it." Jack angrily shrugged it off.

"Did your mother put you up to this?"

"Do you even _know_ Mom?" Ricky shook his head in disbelief. "She doesn't like anyone fighting her battles for her, in fact, she's probably going to be pissed when she finds out we did this, but we knew you'd say no to her."

"Damn right I would. Do you even know what an annulment means? It erases the whole marriage as if it never happened. Like we were never really married."

"Well, you weren't really married, were you? I mean Mom was married to you, but were you ever really married to her?"

"Oh don't give me that shit, Ricky. And let me ask you, do you both really want to be bastards? Did you think about that?"

"Having a marriage annulled does not make us bastards and right now, you're the one being a bastard."

"What do you know about it anyway?" Jack glared at his son. "It was my marriage."

"And we lived it too, Dad. We were there. We know plenty. Probably a lot more than you or even Mom think we know."

"Dad you _owe_ her." Emily's outburst and the tears shining in her eyes caused both men to pause in their argument. "Ricky's right, you were never really married to her and you were never part of our family. You walked away and left Mom to take care of us all alone. And she did it. You sit here and try to make us feel guilty for spending Christmas with Mom and Andy but how many Christmas's did you bother to come home and see us? I can count them on one hand."

"Your mother kept me away. I wasn't allowed to come back and see you."

"That's not true. The only thing Mom ever told you about staying away was that you were not to come around if you'd been drinking."

"You don't know."

"I _do_ know, Dad. I _heard_ her. I heard her begging you to come home to spend time with us, for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for our birthdays. _'They're your kids Jack; they need to see their father. I'm not asking you to do this for me, I'm asking for them. Please.'_ I heard her doing anything she could to convince you to come home and take me to the father/daughter dance at St. Joseph's, she even offered to pay for your plane tickets. Do you remember?"

Jack's eyes fell to the floor, but his silence compelled Emily on. "I was 10 years old and I hadn't seen you in three years. When Mom finally reached you and convinced you to come home, she put me on the phone with you. You promised me you'd be there. You said you couldn't wait to show me off and dance with the best little ballerina in America." When Emily's voice choked with emotion, Ricky rested a gentle hand on her arm for support earning him a look of gratitude. "I was so excited and so nervous. Mom and I had gone shopping and I put on the new dress and new shoes that she had bought for me. She spent a half hour curling my hair so it would be just the way I wanted it. Then we waited and waited and waited and you never showed up." Angrily she brushed at the tear that trailed down her cheek. "Thankfully Mom knew you better than I did, she had Gavin ready as a backup and he took me." The memory was still so vivid, her mother's flamboyant best friend showing up in his tuxedo with a bouquet of roses for her. He'd done his best to make it a special night. He'd made her laugh as only Gavin could, but he was not her father.

At Jack's continued lack of response, Ricky jumped in. "And remember that time I fell out of the tree and broke my arm and had a concussion? I was unconscious and had to have emergency surgery to remove the pressure on my brain from the swelling." Ricky's hand moved to his head feeling for the scar under his hairline as if he had to prove it.

"Mom was out of her mind." Emily's stomach twisted at the memory of her mother kneeling in a pew in the hospital chapel wiping at her tears and praying the decades of the rosary the entire time Ricky was in surgery. "She was so scared."

"I could have died or had brain damage. But did you care? Were you there? When I woke up from surgery Mom was sleeping in a chair by my bed holding my hand." Looking exhausted and wrung out in a way he had never seen her before, hair mussed and dark circles under eyes swollen from crying. "She'd been there all night. She never left my side. But you were nowhere to be found."

At least now, Jack had the decency to look chagrined. "When I got your mother's messages, I did call to see if you were okay."

"Oh, you called. Well, that's okay then. Let's give you a "father of the year" award."

"Look, Ricky, I am well aware that I am not a good parent. I don't need either of you to remind me about that."

"Obviously you do. Do you know what it was like as an 11-year-old boy to have to have my mother help me to the bathroom to pee because I was too dizzy to stand on my own? To have my mother give me the facts of life talk, trying not to die of embarrassment while she explained masturbation and erections and how to use a condom? Seriously, what guy wants to learn about wet dreams from his mother?" He could still see his mom sitting on the couch armed with pamphlets and a book, trying to be so cool and matter of fact, while the pink stain flushing her cheeks and her sometimes-halting explanations gave her away. She was as embarrassed as he was. "I'm sure it wasn't fun for her to have to be explaining all the things my father should have been teaching me but she did it because it had to be done and because you forced her to be both our mother and our father. We have never asked you for a damn thing until now." Ricky's finger pointed angrily in his father's face. "You owe us and you sure as hell owe her. But, if you can't see that, you can just live the rest of your life completely on your own. Emily and I are done." He sat back, arms folded over his chest.

"What are you talking about, you're done?" Fear, icy and cold snaked its way up Jack's spine. With Sharon out his life, Ricky and Emily were all that he had.

"You were never there for us when we were kids and the time that we needed you is long gone." Jack's mouth went slack, his fingers digging painfully into the chair. The apple certainly didn't fall far from the tree. Sharon had said almost the exact same thing when she asked him for a divorce. "Why should we be here for you now? You say you want some kind of relationship with us, well, sign the papers. If you don't, you won't be seeing us anymore."

"You can't be serious. Emily?" Jack turned his attention to his tenderhearted daughter sure she would cave. Only, she didn't. Not this time.

"He's right, Dad. You owe her. My God, she changed her whole career trajectory and took a job she didn't want because she was a single parent and needed to be there for us."

"She got a higher rank and more money," Jack snorted derisively.

"Yes, she did. And she needed it since you took off with her savings." Taking the job in IA had been a practical decision, one her mother would later deem a lifesaver, but in the beginning, she hadn't wanted the job and for a long time she didn't like the job. She never complained about her new position or the toll it was taking on her in front of her and Ricky but one night Emily had heard her crying to Gavin about how awful it was, how all her friends in the department hated her now and wouldn't talk to her. It had taken her years to develop the tough shell she needed to survive in such a thankless position.

"Yes, she did it for the money but she also did it so she could have regular hours and be there for us when we needed her. And she was. She was the one who took care of us when we were sick or had our hearts broken. She's the one who was there to cheer us on when we won and to comfort us when we lost. She's the one who cooked for us, shopped for us and helped us with our homework. She's the one who went to PTA meetings and Open House at school to meet our teachers. She's the one who was in the crowd cheering for us when we graduated and who sacrificed to get me through NYU and Ricky through Stanford. She's the one Dad. The only one who has been there for us every day of our lives from the moment we were born. This is her time now to get what she wants and if you don't give her the opportunity to have the wedding and the marriage that she wants, then you will never see me again."

When Jack simply sat back, Ricky stressed the point. " _Never_ Dad. That means you don't see us get married and you don't get to meet your grandchildren. Andy Flynn will be the only grandfather they will know."

It was that remark that caused Jack to jerk to attention. Out of everything they had said to him it was the comment about Andy that finally penetrated the fog of anger and shame. Ever since the divorce, he had felt like he was walking a tightrope without a net. Before the divorce and before his wife had started shacking up with Flynn he'd always known that no matter how badly he screwed up, he could go back to Sharon and she would help him. A part of him even believed that one day he might be able to win her back. Then Andy had come along and she had divorced him, making it quite clear that her door was locked to him and he was no longer her responsibility. There would be no more bailouts, no more money lent, no more couches to sleep on. Even if he had tried to wheedle himself back into her good graces, Andy was not going to allow him to take advantage of her anymore. This new hands-off approach included his relationship with their children. In the past Sharon had always been their buffer, first convincing him to be a part of their lives and later convincing them to be part of his. She was the one who had blackmailed him into reconnecting with the kids after a 5-year absence from their lives, but she had also made it quite clear that moving forward they were now all adults and, as such, would be responsible for whatever kind of relationship they chose to have. Switzerland was what she said. From now on, she was Switzerland. So, for the first time in his life, he was completely on his own, without back up, and he wasn't handling it well at all. His drinking was growing increasingly out of control again, though he tried to hide it, and now his years of abusing his body were starting to affect his health. He wasn't getting any younger and at his last physical, his doctor hadn't pulled any punches. His blood pressure was high, he was pre-diabetic and thanks to a lifetime of alcoholism he was suffering from ARLD, otherwise known as Alcohol-Related Liver Disease. If he didn't stop drinking, he could soon find himself in liver failure. There would be a time, maybe not so long in the future, when he was going to need those kids.

And as far as Andy Flynn went? Well, he might be the man who had stolen his wife, the one who was fucking her and buying a house with her, the one who was going to marry her and grow old with her, but he'd be damned if he was going to allow him to be his grandchildren's only grandfather.

"What's it gonna be, Dad?"

"Give me the damn papers."

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

A/N I know the first two chapters have been heavily centered on Ricky, Emily, and Rusty, but please be assured Andy and Sharon will make their appearance in the next chapter.

How did it go?" Rusty glanced up from his computer screen when his brother and sister entered the condo. Ricky shook his head negatively and Emily's eyes welled with tears. "That bad, huh?"

"Our father can be a real asshole," Ricky said. Emily nodded in agreement and made her way to the kitchen to grab a glass and a bottle of Perrier from the refrigerator. She sliced a lemon to drop in the sparkling water then leaned against the bar, looking out over the dining room and living room. Ricky followed her, only he grabbed a beer and drank it straight from the bottle.

"What are you doing?" He asked leaning in beside her.

"Just comparing this place to Dad's. God, I hate going over there. It's so depressing."

"Mm…It is pretty small." Ricky agreed. Their father's credit was shit; the only reason he even had the small apartment he was living in was because he'd been able to convince their Uncle Phil to co-sign his lease after their mother had refused.

"It's not just that it's small. My apartment in New York is a postage stamp, but Dad's? It's just empty. No character." There was nothing that spoke of Jack Raydor in that apartment, nothing to show what interested him, what he loved, not even his favorite colors. The walls were white, the furniture bland, and the drapes generic. It had the temporary feel of a man used to living in hotels. A man who knew he probably wouldn't be there for long.

Her mother's condo was the complete opposite. The minute you walked in you could feel Sharon Raydor. It was tasteful and elegant yet also warm and inviting. Expensive but not ostentatious. Right away, it was apparent that a cultured woman who valued the arts and the finer things lived there. It was in the dance artwork that graced her walls and the exquisitely lovely sculptures on her shelves and tables. It was in her many stylish vases and mirrors, and the large art books sitting on her coffee table.

It was in her kitchen where colorful tea sets in ruby red and eggplant and big ceramic mugs in turquoise and pumpkin spoke of a woman who loved tea, coffee, and deep rich colors.

It was in the dining room where her deep roots in the justice system were displayed with cool black and white vintage prints of true 1940's LA crime stories, while plush comfortable chairs surrounding the dining room table and a classic dark wood wine rack storing her best bottles of vintage wine were indicative of a woman who enjoyed spending time over meals with family and friends.

It was in the living room, which was all about softness and warmth, feminine without being frilly. Light carpets over dark wood floors, furniture in shades of burnt orange and dark chocolate brown with colorful accent pillows adding a touch of whimsy. Overhead lighting was rarely used; instead, elegant lamps gave off a soft glow, fresh flowers and plants bringing a homey feel to the rooms and to the outdoor balcony overlooking the hills of Los Feliz. The world her mother inhabited during the day was harsh and often violent; it was no wonder that when she came home she wanted to be surrounded by softness, comfort, and serenity.

With a soft sigh, she took another sip of her sparkling water, and then pushed back off the bar. "I need to get moving. I have to finish packing and get down to Costa Mesa." She poured the ice from her glass into the sink then put the glass in the dishwasher before heading off toward her mother and Andy's bedroom where she had spent the night.

Rusty watched her walk away in silence. He could see that she was hurting and he damned Jack for that. He knew exactly what it was like to worry about every little thing you did or said possibly causing your parent to go on a bender, what it felt like to carry the weight of that responsibility even when you knew intellectually that it was not your burden to carry. He knew what it was like to have a parent who manipulated you and made you feel guilty for every opportunity you had, every bit of happiness you had when it went against what they wanted or needed. To have a parent who constantly disappointed you, crushing whatever hope or belief you had in them. Sharon Beck and Jack Raydor had a lot in common.

"So you did end up having to threaten him." It wasn't a question. Rusty knew how things had gone down by Emily's dejected walk down that hall.

"Yep." Ricky joined him on the couch and stretched out his long legs to prop them on the coffee table. Something he would have thought twice about doing if his mother had been home. "It sucks that he made us do that. For once in his sorry, pathetic life, it would have been nice for him to just do the right thing. I don't think I'll ever understand that man."

"Be glad you don't." People like Jack, selfish, addicted, untrustworthy, manipulative and neglectful were all Rusty had known in his life until he'd come to live with Sharon. For Emily and Ricky, raised by Sharon, surrounded by good, decent, trustful people, their father was an aberration, a person they couldn't understand. For him, it was Sharon and all his pseudo uncles at the PAB who had been the aberrations. It had taken him a very long time, and he still wasn't completely there yet, to understand and believe that there were actually people out there who only cared about his well-being, without expecting anything else in return.

"Em's taking it pretty hard. I think she really believed that when he came back into our lives again a couple years ago things were going to be different. That maybe this time he really had changed. Like that's ever going to happen. People don't change."

Rusty gave him a long measured look. "Yes, they do," he said softly. "But they have to be open to change and ready for a change."

Ricky's brow raised in surprised, Rusty was usually the cynical one in the bunch. "Dr. Joe?"

"Nope. Andy. People can change, Ricky. Look at Andy. Look at me."

Ricky took a long pull from his bottle, eyeing his younger brother. There had been a time he'd allowed Jack to manipulate him into believing that Rusty was a con artist playing on his mother's heartstrings to get what he wanted. He was still ashamed of the things he'd said to her in an effort to convince her not to adopt Rusty. "You know what? You're right. Sorry. I'm just pissed. But…" He picked up the manila folder he'd set down beside him on the couch and waved it in front of Rusty. "I also got what I went there for and that's all I really care about."

"So, that's it? Now Mom and Andy can get married in the church?"

"Not exactly. There is a whole process to this thing. Father Stan explained it all to Emily and me yesterday when we picked up the papers. Mom has to sign the petition to declare the nullity of the marriage, which I have right here. She has to send that in with a filled out questionnaire, written testimony about the marriage and a list of witnesses. If the petition is accepted then the formal process begins."

"What kind of process?"

"She'll have to go through the Church tribunal, which is basically a Catholic Church court with the Bishop as the judge. They'll investigate and question witnesses. Mom will have an advocate to plead her case and the church will have a representative that will argue for the validity of the marriage. Father Stan said things would be a lot quicker and easier if we could get Dad to co-sign the petition because he won't be arguing the case with his own advocate."

"So, he could have contested Mom's petition?"

"Yes, and that could have drawn things out for years. We made sure that wouldn't happen today."

"I didn't think it was going to be that hard. I thought if Jack signed the papers that would pretty much be it. This sounds like it could take a long time."

"It used to take a lot longer. They've streamlined it all over the past few years and, as I said, without Dad contesting, it should go a lot faster. "

"What if she doesn't win?"

"She can appeal."

Rusty shook his head. "It seems like an awful lot to go through just so she can get married in the church. They could get married anywhere. Why is the church so important to Mom anyway? I mean I know she goes to mass a lot, but I don't go to church, do you?"

"I'm an Easter Catholic. Look, it's not about us. It's about Mom. You gotta understand. The church was there for her. It was her support system when we were growing up. You see this," he gestured to encompass the expensive condo. "But there was a time we didn't have this. I was too young to remember when my Dad walked out but I know the church and the parishioners took Mom under their wing and helped her with daycare and after-school programs and with our school tuition. We didn't have any family in California so the church became our family, especially once Em and I were at St. Joes. We were always going to church picnics and suppers; it was a place where we belonged."

"Gram and Gramps are rich. Why didn't they help her out?"

"Yeah, there was no way Mom was going to ask them for help. You know how stubborn she is. She doesn't like to ask anyone for help, especially when it comes to Gram and Gramps and Dad."

"Why?" Technically, though he didn't share their last name, he was a Raydor, but he still didn't know all the family dynamics.

"Gram and Gramps didn't want her to marry Dad, or, at the least they wanted her to wait until after she finished law school to get married. Mom didn't listen to them. She married him as soon as she graduated and, well, as you probably know, things didn't quite work out like she planned. I think she was embarrassed about that and didn't want them to know how bad things were. She was always glossing it over with them. But, when Dad left the second time, along with her savings and our college funds, Gramps flew out and between him, Mom and Gavin they straightened things out financially. That's when she got the legal separation. I heard her tell Aunt Christine once that Dad was her cross to bear. She made her bed and now she had to lie in it. You know how big she is about taking responsibility for your mistakes."

"That isn't fair. She couldn't know how Jack would turn out. She isn't responsible for his mistakes."

"We all know that. I think now, she does too. Anyway, once she got back on her feet, she started being able to give back and help others. I know she donates a lot of money to St. Joe's scholarship fund for other parents struggling with tuition and she donates her time at the battered women's shelter and doling out food for the homeless."

"Yeah, she's had me go with her to help out a few times." The first time Sharon brought him to LA Catholic Worker Soup Kitchen, the kindness and lack of judgment in the people working there had been eye-opening. For so long he'd avoided finding help in places like that, ashamed of what he'd been doing, afraid of judgment, and most of all afraid they would contact DCS and he'd end up in back in foster care. Life would have been a lot easier if he'd accepted their help.

Ricky nodded. "She used to bring Em and me too. The charitable side of the church is really important to her and that's the way she raised us. I may not get to church every Sunday but I still help out with a local mission when I can. The church has always been Mom's moral compass. When I was a kid griping about having to go to mass, I used to ask her why she liked going to church and she always said that the traditions and rituals of the mass give her comfort and peace. It centers her. I think maybe she needs that even more with the job she has."

"I still hate that she's going to have to go through all this."

"Me too. Father Stan warned us that it isn't going to be easy. These things tend to dredge up a lot of painful memories. So, we're going to have to be there for her. Emily and I are going to be relying on you to call us and let us know if you see things are getting tough."

"Yeah. Of course." The fact that he was the sibling closest to their mother, even if only due to proximity as the only sibling still living at home, still felt strange at times. Especially on a day like today when he was feeling a bit like an outsider. He was more than happy not to be Jack's child, one addicted parent was more than enough, but when his brother and sister had gone off to their father's apartment, it had only served to remind him that Sharon and her biological children had a whole history of which he was not a part. They shared a bond that he could never fully understand.

"I hope that by getting Dad to sign the papers we are able to make it a little easier for her."

"Now we just have to hope that Nicole comes through."

* * *

Emily sat heavily on the edge of her mother's bed; well technically, it was her mother and Andy's bed now. Emotionally and physically, she felt drained. When she'd arrived yesterday, it was the first time she'd been in the room since Andy moved in a few months ago, though there were only a few changes that she could discern; The rack in the walk-in closet now holding his suits, dress shirts, ties, and suspenders, the row of male dress shoes, loafers and sneakers and the new dresser on the right side of the bedroom with pictures of his daughter and her family, his parents and the surprising one of her mother wearing a low cut, cleavage-revealing red dress smiling flirtatiously at the camera. It was a picture she had never seen before. When she brought it out to ask Rusty about it, he said that Andy had brought it from his house and that it had been taken in a photo booth at Nicole's wedding reception. Andy also said that she was smiling at him when the photo was taken. If that was the case, there had definitely been a spark between them long before they were officially dating. Her mother was sending out some seriously playful, sexy vibes in that look.

With a sigh, she leaned back and rubbed at a headache that was starting in her temples. Tension. That meeting with her father was something she had been dreading from the moment she, Ricky, Rusty, and Nicole had come together with the plan to make sure their parents got their annulments. While Ricky had been very sure of their actions, she was more conflicted, worried about upsetting their mother and setting off their father. Now, she was very glad she had gone along with the plan. Whatever questions she'd had about whether getting involved was the right thing to do or not had been quickly answered. Jack's combative response had shown them quite clearly that he would never have simply given his consent to the nullification of the marriage. So, in that, they achieved their goal.

But there had been a price.

Ricky tried to warn her that it was going to go down the way that it had but, stupid naïve little fool that she was, she held out hope, as she always did, that her father might turn out to be a better person than he was. In actuality, he was worse. During her childhood, she had seen him mean and aggressively on the offense like that with her mother occasionally-usually about his drinking, but never with her and Ricky. Mom would never have tolerated that and in any case, he was usually on the defensive with them, trying to apologize, making excuses and promising to do better by them. All of it complete bullshit.

Confronting her father with the pain he'd inflicted on her and on their family had been surprisingly cathartic. It was a relief to release some of that repressed anger and pain. Still, it bothered her; it really bothered her that he hadn't agreed to sign the papers because it was the right thing to do, because he needed to make amends, or even because he owed them. Even after Ricky damn near bared his soul about what it was like to transition from a little boy to a man without having a father to help him, he hadn't budged. It was the first time she had ever really heard her brother's perspective on not having a father during adolescence. Ricky wasn't the kind of person to dwell on his feelings; things just seemed to roll off his back. Apparently, that wasn't completely the case. Today she learned that her brother was harboring some very deep seeded resentment. Today she learned that despite whatever loss she felt at not having a father in her life, she was actually the lucky one.

Growing up she had a loving, attentive mother to help her navigate the transition from little girl to young woman, a mother who had gone through all those same changes and who could anticipate what kinds of questions and fears she might have and could understand everything she was going through. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like not to have a mother to explain to her how her body was changing and to assure her that everything she was going through was perfectly normal.

Her mother had guided her through the physical and emotional aspects of menstruation, assuring her that it was nothing to be embarrassed about, that she too hadn't started her period until she was 13, and yes, of course, she could still go swimming. She was the voice of experience when discussing the various types of hygiene products. She was there with open arms the day she came home from school having stained her khakis because her period had come early, understanding the need she had to cry out her mortification. She knew what to do when the cramps hit, advising a heating pad some ibuprofen and a cup of chamomile tea.

Her mother had taken her shopping for her first training bra, laughing with her over what exactly their boobs were training for and letting her pick out the pretty pink and lavender ones with the bows. Her mother was there to teach her how to use a curling iron and a straight iron, how to put on makeup and shave her legs and even how to use a tampon. The value of learning those things from someone who loved her, someone who had been through it all, experienced it all and understood how she was feeling was something she had taken for granted. Not anymore. Because of their father's selfishness, Ricky's adolescence was an entirely different experience from hers.

And rather than feeling bad about everything, rather than doing what his kids were asking of him as a way of trying to make things right, Jack's unresponsiveness to their pain and their calls to his better angels had forced them into blackmail.

Sign the papers or never see them again.

That was what had done it. He'd finally signed the papers only because he didn't want to die alone. Oh, and because he couldn't stand the thought of Andy Flynn being his future grandchildren's only grandfather. It was always about him, what he wanted and needed. It had never been about them and it never would be. Her mother once said that a relationship with Jack was always going to be on his terms and she had to decide whether she was able to live with that or not or he would just continue to make her miserable. Well, today, she and Ricky changed that dynamic. The relationship was on their terms now. But at what cost?

Her eyes swimming with tears, Emily reached blindly into the top drawer of mother's nightstand to grab a tissue. Padding around inside, she had to remove a couple of bottles to get to the tissue box. Pulling out a few sheets, she wiped at her eyes and blew her nose, vowing to stop letting her father get to her. She had to accept who he was and all he was capable of giving if she was going to be able to move on and keep him even on the periphery of her life. With that resolution and her eyes now cleared of tears, she turned to put everything back in the drawer, grabbed one of the bottles, and froze. A wave of heat immediately rose in her face as she read the label on the small clear bottle…

 _Uberlube._

Oh dear God, she had just grabbed her mother and Andy's lube. Dropping it back in the drawer like a hot potato, she eyed the other blue bottle sitting on the table both hesitant and a little curious to see what was in it. Lifting it like it might bite; she turned it around to read, 'Euphoria, organic sensual warming massage oil.' Yeah, that was no better. Andy might not have a huge presence in the condo at the moment but he was definitely present in her mother's bed. She dropped the bottle in with the other and rose with a shudder, trying not to envision the kinds of things that her mother and her lover were doing in that bed or to dwell on the fact that at the moment, her mother had a sexier private life than she did.

It's not like she wasn't aware that her mother now had an active sex life, she just finished spending several days sharing a suite with her and Andy-the two being nearly caught in the act by little Scotty- but it was something she was still in the process of getting used to.

Her father hadn't lived with them since she was 7 years old and if her mother had dated after her legal separation, she never brought a man home to meet her and Ricky. When she was 13 or 14 she overheard a rumor that her mother was seeing Ricky's pee wee football coach and that when she broke things off with him he retaliated by not playing Ricky, even though he'd always been a starter. Rumor had it that she showed up at the next practice, waited until all the kids were gone to the locker rooms then laid into the guy with the fearsome wrath of a lioness protecting her cub. Ricky not only played in the next game, he was a starter again. Whatever the truth of the matter, nothing ever came of the relationship and that was really all she'd ever heard when it came to her mother and men. She wasn't naïve enough though to think that her mother had been celibate for the 20 years between her father and Andy, no matter what her brothers wanted to think. She was a beautiful, vital woman and once Emily had become a teenager, she had been able to recognize the way men looked at her for what it was.

As a little girl, she was proud of having such a beautiful mother. But by the time she became a gawky teen with a dancers chest and braces, that pride turned into something else entirely. The day she caught a boy she had a massive crush on ogling her mother's legs only to be told, "I _can't help it; your mom is a babe, a real MILF, and I'm not the only guy who thinks so,"_ it had played on every insecurity she had about herself and released a wave of suppressed emotion. She lashed out at her bewildered mother accusing her of turning on the sex appeal when in fact, she was wearing the same slim-fitting pencil skirt and stiletto's she always wore to work. Somehow, that only made it worse. Her mother didn't even have to try.

Her friends thought she was so lucky having such a pretty, stylish mom but she didn't feel so lucky, at least not then. Like most teenage girls she was filled with angst over her looks and body image and having a beautiful mother in her face every day didn't help with that at all. Back then, she actually envied the girls with plain, plump and frumpy mothers, as they wouldn't come up lacking in comparison the way she always felt around her mother. But that was a long time ago. Before she'd come into her own, as her mother had always insisted she would, and grown confident in her own looks and body.

Still, whatever her mother's appeal, until Andy she never openly dated a man so Emily never really thought too much about her sex life or lack thereof.

Rusty was the one who brought it to her attention. A little bubble of laughter started in her chest as she remembered the phone call she'd gotten from her youngest brother who was all in a dither. Their mother had been dating Andy for a little while and evidently, the relationship was moving into one of greater intimacy. She'd thought it only fair and courteous to warn Rusty that there were going to be times when Andy would be spending the night. She didn't want him to be shocked or taken by surprise to see him coming out of her bedroom or to find him in the shower or sitting at the dining room table in his pajamas. Rusty was so appalled by the very idea of them sleeping together, not because he didn't like Andy, but because, _"I don't want Andy doing THAT to my mother! "_ , she burst into laughter, which only frustrated him more. It had taken her several minutes to pull him off the sex train and look beyond the coitus, to quote Sheldon Lee Cooper, to see what was really happening. Their mother's relationship with Andy was progressing. It was becoming deeper and more serious and that was a good thing.

Still smiling at the memory, Emily forced herself to rise and start packing the few things she had taken out of her suitcase after traveling across the country. Walking by her mother's dresser, she paused and took a moment to look at the pictures she had on display. They were the same pictures she'd seen dozens of times, at least a few of them, but with the conversation at her father's still fresh in her mind, painful childhood memories drawn back to the surface, she now looked at them with a new perspective.

Lifting one of the pictures, she gazed down taking it all in as if for the first time. Her mother was standing at the 50-yard line on a football field wearing an oversized St. Joseph's Cougars football jersey, number 12. Towering over her all rigged out in his shoulder pads and Cougar's uniform, matching number 12, Ricky had his arm around her and was handing her a single rose. It was senior night, his last home football game, a chance for the players to thank their parents, only in this case it was just his mom, alone, but smiling with pride.

Had she ever really taken the time to notice just how alone her mother had been over the years? Of course, it was hard growing up without a father. Of course, she and Ricky had suffered, but what about their mother? All those years as a wife without a husband.

Setting it back down, she reached for the picture next to it. She knew this one very well because she had a copy of it in her apartment in New York. Her mother was dressed more formally this time, her hair in an elegant up-do. Emily smiled, remembering the moment well. It was her first performance with ABT at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Her mother was smiling from ear to ear as she handed her a huge bouquet of red roses. Though she'd sent an invitation, her father had not attended. In fact, he had yet to see her dance professionally. He promised to go down and see her in Costa Mesa but she wasn't holding her breath

The third photo was her mother and Rusty, arms wrapped around each other's waists. Mom was beaming, Rusty smiling shyly. It was the day of his adoption and the condo was filled with people there to celebrate. In the back, just off her mother's shoulder, she could see a bit of Andy Flynn smiling toward the mother and her new son. That's where he'd been at that time, just on the outside of her life, close the circle but not quite in.

Just to the right of the three pictures of her kids was a large 5X7 of Andy. The last time she visited that picture had been on the nightstand beside the bed, probably so it was the last thing her mother saw before she went to sleep. Now with Andy having moved in, she had the real thing by her side every night, which was probably why she had moved the picture to place amongst the family photos. It was a close-up. He was wearing a black t-shirt, a denim jacket, and a little grin. Andy really was a very good-looking man. And, honestly, what woman could ever resist a man with a devilish twinkle in his eye? It was no wonder he had caught her mother's attention. The first time she saw the picture and commented on it her mom said she had taken it on a night she and Andy had driven out to the desert to watch a meteor shower. She also said, with an affectionate smile, that it was her favorite picture of him, which was another reason why she probably hadn't put it away.

In the last picture, her mother was no longer alone. She was in Andy Flynn's arms. He'd finally made it to the middle of the circle, no longer hanging off in the background waiting to be let in. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt in various shades of blue and black while her mother wore a light blue cashmere turtleneck sweater. It was uncanny how often their clothes matched. They were standing in Griffith Park, surrounded by greenery. Her mother's arms were locked around Andy's torso, her head resting against his shoulder, while his arm was closed protectively around her pulling her in as if to hold her closer, his cheek brushing against the top of her head. They looked so happy.

Setting it back down, Emily felt her chest filling with warmth. As awful as it had been to see her father's true colors, the end result was worth it. After everything her mother had done and sacrificed for her and Ricky over the years, it felt good, really, really good, finally to be able to do something for her for a change. It wasn't going to be easy, there were still a lot of hurdles to be crossed, but her mom was going to finally get her happily ever after and it lifted her heart to know that in some small way, she was a part of that.

Now, she could only hope that when her mother found out what they had done, she would understand.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

A/N:

Shandy is back and here is your fair warning.

There is sex in this chapter. If that's not your cup of tea you might want to skip this one or at least stop reading

after Ricky and Rusty's conversation while Ricky prepares the couch for bed.

* * *

"Here we are, home sweet home." Andy pushed the door open to the condo, allowing Sharon to enter before he followed her in dragging in their large suitcase, the big carryon leather bag on his shoulder banging against the doorway as he tried to maneuver everything through.

Sharon dropped her smaller carry-on and turned to look at him with a sympathetic smile. She appreciated the sentiment, and yes, it was where he was living now, but she knew it wasn't home. With most of his things still in storage until they found a house to buy, aesthetically, nothing had really changed since he moved in.

"Mom, Andy, you're back."

"Ricky!" Sharon's excited squeal of surprise and the way she embraced her son brought a smile to Andy's lips. The pureness of her love for her children was something to behold.

"You just saw me, yesterday, Mom," Ricky laughed at Sharon's enthusiasm.

"Yes, and I didn't expect to see you again for quite a while. I thought you were flying back to San Francisco yesterday?"

Ricky's eyes met Rusty's with slight trepidation. "Yes, well, I had something I needed to do."

"What's that?"

"We'll talk after supper. Rusty and I cooked." Sharon's eyes met Andy's but he just shrugged. He didn't know any more than she did.

" _Rusty_ cooked," Rusty corrected his brother while pulling a glass baking dish filled with stuffed pasta shells covered in spaghetti sauce and melted mozzarella cheese out of the oven. "Ricky stood around trying to tell me what to do."

"You weren't putting enough ricotta in the shells; I like a lot of ricotta. Mom always puts in extra for me."

Rusty rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I'm not your mommy."

Andy's lips twitched with amusement and he gave Ricky fist pump, he loved a lot of ricotta too. Rusty shook his head at Sharon who smiled; anyone would be hard pressed not to take Andy and Ricky for biological father and son.

"It smells delicious," Andy said, making his way to the kitchen. "We're starving."

"We thought you might be." Ricky grabbed a big wooden bowl full of greens and made his way to the dining room. "I made the salad."

Rusty brought the dish to the table setting it down on a hot plate. "Like I said, _Rusty_ cooked."

"And we appreciate it, both of you." Sharon gave Rusty's shoulder a quick squeeze before sitting down at the table. "Saves us from having to order a pizza." Which, exhausted from their cross-country flight, was exactly what they had planned on doing when they got home.

"Well then, let's eat."

* * *

When they finished their meal Andy suggested that he and Rusty do the dishes giving Sharon more precious time with the son who lived 6 hours away and would be leaving the next morning. Ricky took Sharon's left hand eyeing the east-west emerald cut diamond. He saw it in Connecticut but everyone had been fighting to have a look and he had only gotten a quick glance.

"Not bad, Andy, nice work. "

"Oh, well, I can't afford a ring as beautiful as she deserves, but thanks. "

Sharon twisted the band on her finger admiring the way the light played on the diamonds. "This is much more than enough. It's perfect and I love it. Now, do you want to tell me why you skipped out on your flight and stuck around here in LA?" Her worried eyes moved between her two sons. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk to you about the wedding. Have you guys discussed a date yet for the ceremony?" Sharon shook her head in a 'drop the subject' way and rested her hand on his, confusing the hell out of him. "What?"

"Rusty, how about we go out and get some air?" As happy as both he and Sharon were with the idea of getting married, the topic of the wedding itself was a touchy conversation and Andy figured Sharon would like a little privacy with her son.

"Okay, sure." Rusty gave Ricky a look of support as he followed Andy out to the balcony.

"You know, Ricky, we talked about this in Connecticut. There are issues."

"Mom, no, no, no. This is your time to be happy, don't postpone it."

"I am trying to move things forward, but if I want to get married in the Catholic Church. Oh, I don't know." She sat back with a dejected sigh, the pain heavy in her chest.

"I do. That's why I stayed here in LA, and so did Emily. We went to see Father Stan yesterday about an annulment. He said all of Dad's past behavior, the drinking, gambling, disappearing acts; they create an easy straightforward annulment of your first marriage, secured by the bishop."

"And your father is going to have an issue with that."

"Oh, I already talked to him."

" _You what_?" She couldn't have been more stunned.

"Emily and I got the papers from Father Stan and we brought them over to Dad's place this morning. We walked Dad through the entire thing and we made it abundantly clear that if he wants to continue to have a relationship with us then he has to agree to the annulment."

"And _Jack_ was okay with all that?"

"Oh, he was pissed." Ricky laughed, making light of it. If she knew what really went down it would only upset her and that was the last thing he wanted. "But he agreed to sign a letter of approval, which I have here. He's going to fill out the questionnaire and have it back to me by next week."

"How did you know to go to your father about my annulment?"

"Mom," he took her hands in his. "How can we not know what the church means to you? And how could we not go full out for our mother who gave so much to us."

Sharon sat back with a far-off look, her silence louder than any words.

"Is there something else?" He asked with concern.

"Yes." Her eyes fell on Andy out on the balcony with Rusty. "I am not the only divorced Catholic in this relationship."

"Well Andy's ex-wife remarried, I don't think she'll mind giving him an annulment."

"Moving forward on an annulment of Andy's former marriage has got to be his idea, not mine and certainly not yours." She narrowed her eyes at him, without effect. He just gave the same look back at her, with a little growl. She couldn't help but smile. Just like with Andy, she found it very difficult to stay angry with him.

"Okay then, I can't see him not wanting an annulment, but if for some reason he doesn't, then would you consider getting married outside the church and finally stop letting them dictate who is and isn't your family?"

Sharon shook her head sadly, Ricky just didn't get it. "When I said yes to Andy, it wasn't contingent on either of us getting annulments. I am going to marry him, no matter what, but if I can't do it in the church…." A look of pain filled her eyes and her voice broke. "I will be losing something very precious to me."

"See, that's just it. I don't want you to lose that, Mom, none of us do. I guess we just have to hope that Andy feels the same way."

And that Nicole came through.

* * *

"What did she say?" Rusty asked, once Sharon and Andy had gone off to bed and Ricky was preparing the couch with blankets.

"God, I can't wait until Mom and Andy buy a house and I don't have to sleep on the couch anymore."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Rusty always felt guilty when Ricky came home and had to sleep on the couch because he had taken over his bedroom.

"No worries, that's the way it happens. Older kid moves out and younger sib takes his room. Besides, I used to get stuck on the couch when Emily and I were both visiting at the same time anyway. Did you know Mom was supposed to get a three-bedroom condo? Our house sold before the condo was available so she had to take the two-bedroom unit. Didn't think it would be a problem at the time, but I guess she didn't see you in her future."

"Yeah, I'm sure I wasn't part of her life plan. So, come on, what did she say? Was she mad at you?"

"A little, I think. But not as bad as I thought. She seemed more…I don't know, resigned, than anything. It's like she expects this not to work out. I hate that. Nothing in her life ever seems to work out the way she planned or hoped. Even her job. Did you know that when Chief Pope was selling Mom a transfer to take over Major Crimes, he promised to make her Commander? She got the job, but not the promotion."

Rusty snorted. "That doesn't surprise me. Lying is a way of life over there."

"Yeah, well, for once, I'd just like to see her get everything she wants and deserves…completely. I just want her to be happy."

"She will be. I trust Nicole. She'll fix things on her end and then Mom and Andy will both be able to get the ball rolling.

* * *

Andy came out of the bathroom in his bathrobe, boxer briefs, and a t-shirt to find Sharon seated, propped up by pillows, on her side of the bed. He paused for a moment to take in the sight of her in one of his favorite shortie pajama sets; a lavender lace-trimmed silk camisole with matching tap pants that were so short they revealed almost all her long, lean legs, which at the moment were drawn up toward her chest. The cream she was rubbing into her arms filled the room with the scent of vanilla and jasmine.

There was something special about seeing her like this in their bed, something he still didn't take for granted. As beautiful as she was during the day, with her hair perfect and her makeup emphasizing her stunning features, having her here in bed like this, with her hair pulled back in a messy bun, her glasses sitting on the nightstand and her face scrubbed clean of makeup he was given the unique privilege of seeing her in a more natural state; the little sprinkle of pale freckles on her nose and cheeks, the clarity of her stunning jade green eyes and the fine laugh lines at the corners of those eyes that deepened when she smiled. It was a side she allowed very few people to see. Even on her days off his lady love didn't as much as run out to the grocery store without being put together. She might be wearing jeans and a t-shirt like everyone else on a day off, but she paired them with nice boots and stylish jackets in leather and suede and always wore at least a touch of makeup. Those Wal-Mart shoppers in the pictures all over the internet were an alien species to her. Even when he'd stayed with her before they were sleeping together while he recovered from his blood clot she had never come out to the breakfast table without having her hair freshly blown dried, her glasses on and her face made up. He'd never thought about it until then, but the way she looked, the way she dressed, it was like another shield for her. Now he was beyond the shield, allowed to see her every vulnerability, but he still remembered what it felt like to be so close to the inner sanctum yet still so far away.

Back when his original injury had turned into a dangerous blood clot in his carotid artery that required constant supervision and he'd moved in with Sharon, they had only been dating for a couple months and hadn't yet had sex. Sharon wanted to take things slow, she wanted an old-fashioned courtship, though to be honest, it felt to him like he'd been courting her for almost two years. Whatever. He understood where she was coming from. One of the best things about Sharon was that she wasn't like the kind of women he usually dated, certainly not the type to hop into bed on the first date. Sex was meaningful for her, it wasn't just about the quick thrill of pleasure, it was about sharing herself with him. It was also the last barrier in their relationship. Once that was gone, it would be complete intimacy and that was scary for her. The baggage she still carried thanks to the way Jack had treated her over the years was still quite heavy and workplace romances could be sticky if they didn't work out. Love had come easily to them; trust was a little harder and had to be earned.

So, by the time he'd moved in…to Rusty's bedroom, they'd had a few heavy make-out sessions, he'd had his hand inside her blouse and one tantalizing time up her skirt, but he had yet to see her naked and they had yet to make love.

And it was killing him. Killing…Him…There he was living in the same condo with her and still denied the pleasure of knowing her in the carnal way of his fantasies, this time, not just because of her hesitance but because he was physically restrained from all that kind of activity. Hell, he wasn't even allowed to cross his legs, whatever that was all about.

He'd lain in Rusty's bed at night, knowing with every fiber of his being, that Sharon was sleeping just across the hall. What was she wearing? What would it feel like to sleep pressed up against her? Did she think about him and touch herself the way he did when he thought about her? Damn. Mentally he knocked himself upside the head. Those were dangerous thoughts. Before the clot, when those kinds of thoughts about Sharon brought him to this state, he could just finish himself off. That was no longer an option now. The last thing he needed was to get the blood rushing and shove that clot right into his brain.

His first morning in the condo, he'd put on his bathrobe and padded across the hall to the bathroom. The shower was running so he knocked. _'Be out in a few minutes,'_ Sharon called out. Crap….it had to be her in the shower. Yes, his mind went there in an instant. Just on the other side of that door, Sharon Raydor, the object of his desire, stood behind the glass doors of the shower, water sluicing down over her nude body, the body denied to him for so long. If they were lovers, he could walk through that door, slip out of his bathrobe and join her. He could run his soapy hands over her curves, feel the weight of her breasts, tease the springy curls between her thighs. If they were lovers he- _'Andy, just a heads up, she takes a pretty long shower.'_ Shit, he forgot about the kid. He turned away slightly to hide his hard-on. Rusty was already suspicious enough of him, the last thing he needed was for the boy to see him lusting at the bathroom door over his mother.

Later, it was a relief to learn that Sharon had not been immune to the sexual tension he'd felt. Once he healed and they finally started sleeping together, she admitted that having him in her condo, sleeping in the next room, using her shower, laying on her couch in his pajamas had all stoked a few of her own fantasies, for which she'd gravelly chastised herself knowing that any kind of sexual activity could have been dangerous for him. She also admitted, with an adorable blush, that yes indeed, she did fantasize about him and touch herself, which, Christ Almighty, was one hell of a turn on. Just because she wanted to take things slow didn't mean that she didn't desire him, or that it was any easier for her to hold off until she was ready.

Thankfully, they were beyond all that now. He took his bathrobe off and tossed it over the chair, focusing once again on the woman sitting on the bed now rubbing the cream into her legs. Whatever frustration he felt back then had only made the intimacy between them now all the sweeter. Much, much sweeter.

As he approached the bed and didn't receive even a flicker of interest, it was obvious that she too was a million miles away.

"Hey," he said, sinking into the bed beside her. "Are you still stewing about Ricky going to see Jack about the annulment?"

"Hmm…What?" She turned to him with confusion, pulled out of her thoughts. "No. I told you I was letting it go for the night and I have. Besides, I don't stew."

"Of course you don't." He grinned, leaning over to kiss her bare shoulder. "God, you smell good."

She shivered at the feel of his whisker rough jaw against her skin. "I don't," she insisted. And, thank you."

"You're welcome. So," he continued to nuzzle along her shoulder. "If you aren't stewing about Ricky, what's bothering you?"

"What makes you think something is bothering me?"

He gave her a questioning head tilt, and then just waited her out. Pushing only caused her to retreat but if he waited her out long enough to form her thoughts, he knew she would open up to him. She set the jar of body cream down on the nightstand, and then she surprised him by flipping over and pressing her body up against his. "Andy?" Her fingers began rubbing the extra soft fabric of his sleep t-shirt the way she did when she was nervous about something.

"What is it, babe?" He rested his cheek against the top of her head.

"Does it bother you living here?"

"What?" That wasn't the question he expected.

"Today when you came into the condo, you said 'home sweet home', but I know it can't really feel like home to you. I feel terrible that all your stuff is still in storage."

"We agreed that was for the best, there's no reason to move everything twice."

"I know. I guess when we discussed it I thought we would find a house a lot faster than we have. And I know that I've been a little pickier than-"

"Sharon, stop." He took the hand that was playing with his shirt and brought it up to his lips. "Sometimes I've just wanted us to find our perfect house so much I jump in too quickly and don't always look at the bigger picture. Every time you've put the brakes on you've been right. If it isn't perfect for you or if it isn't perfect for me, then it isn't perfect for _us_."

"I know. I just feel bad that this place isn't more 'home' for you."

"This place is home for me, sweetheart. Because you're here. I would rather spend the rest of my life with all my stuff in storage, living here with you, then to spend it in a spectacular house surrounded by all of my things without you. _You_ are what makes me feel at home, not my stuff. "

"Oh dammit, there you go again."

"Huh?" His look of confusion was adorable.

"How do you always do that?" She rose up on her elbow, cupped a hand over his cheek and looked down on him, her eyes shiny with tears.

"Do what?" He leaned into her palm.

"Touch me, right here." She took his hand and placed it over her heart. "No one has ever made me feel the way you do, Andy. I love you, so, so much." She bent down to kiss him, moaning against his lips when his hand slipped inside her camisole to cup over her breast. The proximity was just too much to resist. He'd always been a leg man, but breasts were a close second, and with Sharon, he might even call it a tie.

"Love you too," he murmured against her lips. "But, babe, I do have something I need to confess."

"Okay." She grew serious, a slight frown marring her brow. "What's that?"

"I really do miss my pool table."

" _Andy!_ " She shook her head, her laughter muffled into his cheek. "I promise we'll find a house with enough room for your pool table."

"We better, because you still owe me." He let his lips trail down the column of her throat, latching on to the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She purred, her hips growing restless.

"Not my fault we caught a murder." Her breathing grew heavy as he began sliding his thumb over her nipple again and again until it was pebble hard and aching.

"No, but we never finished our game." He pulled her thigh over his hip, thrusting his hardening cock directly into her mound. When her breath caught and she finished the roll on top of him, grinding against his rigid groin, he grinned. He hadn't expected this tonight, figured they would both be too tired. "And I was winning. I had you down to those sexy red lace panties. One more bank shot and I would have been hitting a home run with you on that table."

She gave a sultry laugh. The few dates she'd gone on after her separation had been sober outings with oh so serious men. Being with Andy was different, it was the most fun she'd ever had. He was irreverent and spontaneous and he had a way of cajoling her out of her comfort zone that left her feeling daring and sexy in ways she'd never felt before. "That was the longest trip from Valencia to the PAB I can ever remember."

"You're telling me. You're not the one who had a hard on the entire trip." The whole drive from the valley to LA his mind kept flashing on the vision of Sharon standing in his den in those red bikini panties and nothing else. Just the thought of her bending over his pool table and how he'd planned to claim his victory kept adding fuel to the fire between his legs.

"I think you're exaggerating a little there, but I am glad it was gone by the time we got to the city."

"Yeah, imagine explaining that to Provenza. Well, you see, Sharon and I were at my house playing a game of strip pool." Andy chuckled at the thought. "You know how he always says he's going to die at his desk? Well, that might have sent him right over the edge."

"You might be right," she laughed while closing her hand over the bulge in his briefs, gently caressing and squeezing him.

"Oh, Christ Shar…That's good"

She smiled and gave him one last squeeze before pulling his underwear down to release him. When her hand closed around the bare warm skin of his thick shaft, his eyes rolled back in his head.

"Seems like you still have that problem." Letting him go for the moment, she reached over into her nightstand searching around for the trusty little bottle.

"What?" he asked when she frowned.

"I can't find the lubricant."

He chuckled softly despite the pressure between his legs. He always thought it was cute that she hated the word 'lube'. "It's usually right there in the front."

"I know. Oh, never mind. I can take care of it myself."

A jolt of pure lust ran from his spine to the tip of his penis at that declaration. He knew what was coming …and that it was pure heaven. Holding his breath he watched as Sharon bent her head and began pressing tiny little kisses along his cock. His buttocks clenched involuntarily each time she flicked her tongue over the head, his eyes closing so he could savor the sweet sensations of her tongue running up and down his length, her fingers caressing and teasing his tight heavy balls. So lost was he in the exquisite sensations that when she finally slid her mouth fully over him he gave a deep guttural groan of surprise and arched off the bed. She paused, looking up at him with alarm.

"Shit. Sorry." He glanced toward the bedroom door. Her two sons were just on the other side. "We really do have to buy a new house." He grabbed a pillow to show her he had his groans under control and she continued to go down on him. Watching Sharon sliding her mouth up and down his cock was so erotic it was all he could do to keep from coming.

"Taylor…Turner…Bellinger…Puig…."

Sharon hummed with a soft laugh against him. It was the Dodgers batting order and that meant Andy was getting close. She'd be more than happy to finish him off knowing that he'd reciprocate, but chances were tonight he 'd be so tired he'd fall asleep once he was sated and her own body was thrumming for release. So, she let him slip from her mouth.

He was about to protest when she bent for one last kiss to lick away the little pearl drop at the tip, a move that always drove him a little crazy. His voice husky, he pled with her. "Shar…don't stop…"

"Oh, honey, we're not done yet." She gave him a wicked grin and slowly began sliding her sexy French knickers down over her hips and thighs, her cami up over her head. His hands immediately reached up to cup over her breasts, as she'd known they would. After a few moments of kneading the soft mounds, he gently tugged her closer for better access to her chest. His tongue snaked out to flick over her nipple the way his thumbs had earlier and when he sucked the hard rosy peak into his mouth she threw her head back with a soft plea of her own. The gentle ache between her legs grew to a fevered throb and she took his penis, now stiff and ready, and slid it up and down her warm wet cleft, shivering each time he passed over her clit.

"Sharon." Her name came out strangled, filled with a desire that never ceased to amaze her. She continued to slide him back and forth, once, twice, then teased him at her opening, allowing his tip to enter her then removing him again and again until they were both panting with the unrequited need that was only one tantalizing slide away. Positioning herself for it, Sharon placed her hands on Andy's shoulders and bent her head to press her lips against his. He could taste himself on her tongue and deepened the kiss at the same moment she slid her knees wide allowing him to penetrate her all the way to his balls, her cry of pleasure caught in his mouth. They stayed that way for a few moments, hearts pounding, both close to the edge. Then, without withdrawing, Andy rolled her over, pulled her long leg up over his back and began the deep, long, slow thrusts she liked to get started with. It didn't take long to bring her up to his level of arousal, in fact, he'd barely begun when she started whimpering against his shoulder, shoving her hips into his and digging her nails into his butt in an effort to pull him deeper.

"Andy…Andy…Andy…." His name was a plea. She couldn't form a coherent thought but he knew her well enough now to know exactly what she was begging for… and complied. Gripping her luscious ass in his palms, he pulled her up tight against him and began the deep frantic thrusts that quickly sent them both over the edge, her sheath squeezing and contracting around him while he ejaculated with a deep groan of utter bliss. Completely spent they collapsed together in a tangle of arms and legs, hearts pounding and bodies rippling with the aftershocks of their orgasms.

* * *

Coming back from the bathroom after cleaning Andy from her and sticking a panty liner in her underwear to catch the rest of his leakage, Sharon paused at her nightstand and began rooting around inside. Finally, way at the back of the drawer, she found the bottles that had been right in the front.

"Found it," she said, lifting the bottle of 'uberlube' with triumph.

"Hmm?"

She was right. Andy was already almost asleep. It was so much easier for a man to clean up after sex than a woman.

"I found the lubricant. I just don't know why it was way in the back of the drawer. We used it right before we left and it was right in front."

"Come to bed, sweetheart," he sleepily patted the spot beside him. "I don't think Goldilocks has been in our bed."

"No, I suppose not." Sharon slipped into bed beside him. But she still couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been messing around in her drawers…and with her lube.

There she said it.

Lube.

Ugh. It still sounded like something out of a porn movie.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

A/N Just wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you who took the time to leave feedback. It really is appreciated.

* * *

"I really like this buffer day idea of yours." Andy was in the tiny laundry room just off the dining room adding another load of clothes into the dryer.

"I told you it was good to have a free day when you get back from a vacation."

"I'm not sure how 'free' the day is." Rusty cast a skeptical look at the piles of laundered clothing that Sharon was continuing to fold on the dining room table.

Ricky nodded while munching on a huge bear claw. "I think Mom's buffer days are all about her not being able to stand having a ton of dirty laundry laying around. "

Sharon smirked and swatted at him with a pair of Andy's underwear. "It's hardly a ton; we did a load before we left Connecticut. It's just nice to have a day to relax and unwind when you get back from a long vacation. We were able to sleep in, kick off some of this jet lag and to enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast, thanks to Andy."

"Yeah, thanks Andy," both boys called out to him.

"No problem guys." Last night before he went off to bed, Andy slipped the boys a fifty and asked them to head over to "Bread and Chocolate" one of their favorite bakeries to pick up some goodies for breakfast. He requested lemon blueberry muffins and Sharon's favorite maple pecan sticky buns, but other than that they were free to go ahead and get whatever else they wanted, dangerous carte blanche for two young men with seemingly bottomless pits. The bakery was only a couple blocks away so early that morning they'd walked over, returning with Andy's order as well as a box filled with bear claws, apple fritters and cream cheese covered cinnamon buns.

It was close to 10:30 before Sharon and Andy ventured out of their bedroom. By then the sun had burned off the early morning December chill so they ate their decadent breakfast out on the balcony with plenty of hot coffee.

"Hey, Shar. I have a bunch of your unmentionables here, but I can't find that purple bottle of lingerie soap you like to soak them in."

"I had to buy a new one. Hold on, it's in the pantry." She reached into the closet to pull out the bottle of Nordstrom's lavender scented lingerie wash that she used to clean her underwear. "And make sure you don't put them in the dryer."

"I know…I know," he held up his hands in surrender.

"Wait, what? " Rusty turned to Sharon. He'd seen pantyhose hanging on the wooden drying rack, but underwear? "Why can't you just wash your underwear with everything else? And what's wrong with the dryer? We wash and dry our underwear with everything else." Rusty had been doing his own laundry since he moved in and told Sharon he could take care of his own clothes, but she had never let him near hers. Most of it was dry clean only anyway.

"Because our underwear is not _delicate_ ," Andy grinned, twirling a burgundy satin and lace bra on his finger. "And you can't dry bras in the dryer because it gets the underwire all messed up."

Much to Sharon's amusement, the boys stared at him with gaping mouths.

"Uh… something you want to tell us before you marry our mother, Andy?" Ricky asked.

Sharon snorted a laugh while Andy scowled. "I am NOT a cross-dresser. I know because when I first moved in, I wanted to be helpful and did the laundry. Your mother damn near passed out when she saw that I'd washed all her skivvies with mine. So, I got a lesson on how to wash lingerie."

"And you learned your lesson well, darling." Sharon handed him the bottle of detergent and kissed his cheek. When she turned to depart, she scanned the room taking in the empty laundry hamper.

"Did you pull the sheets from the bed? " She asked. "Those uh…need to be washed." The light flush that stained her cheeks deepened when Rusty muttered "Gross" under his breath. She started to protest that everyone needed to wash their sheets but stopped herself. Rusty knew the drill. Sheets were washed once a week like clockwork in Sharon's world. It was only after Andy had started spending nights at the condo and later moved in that changing the sheets sometimes became more than a once a week chore…and he knew why.

"Already in the wash ma'am. I-" He broke off at the sound of his cell phone going off. Pulling it out of the pocket in his jeans, he looked up with a bit of surprise. "Hey, it's my ex-wife."

Ricky and Rusty jumped to attention.

"Oh, does she call you often? " Rusty was the face of innocence.

"No, uh, no." And that's what had him worried. Unless it had something to do with Nicole, he and Sandra didn't speak. The last time he'd even heard from her was a "Get Well" card sent to the hospital after his surgery, which quite frankly had shocked the hell out of him. There was a time he would have sworn she wanted him six feet under. "Hold on a second. Uh, hey Sandra, what's up?"

Sharon's eyes narrowed. She had not missed the less than subtle interaction between her sons. They were both terrible at trying to hide the triumphant smiles on their faces, particularly Ricky.

"Uh…Yes, she did….Yes, very happy. Excited…Thank you, I appreciate that...What?…No, of course I don't mind…That's great…Yeah, go ahead and send them…Okay then. I'll talk to you soon. And Sandra, thank you again. Bye." He hung up, staring silently at his phone.

"Andy?"

"That was Sandra."

Sharon smiled. "I got that. Is everything okay?"

"More than okay. You're not going to believe this. Sandra just filed paperwork with the church."

Sharon's eyes snapped to her sons. She knew they'd been up to something.

"Yeah. Nicole told her that I asked you to marry me and that we really wanted to have the ceremony in the church. She offered me an annulment."

"What? Really?" Her eyes moved from Andy back to the boys, now with a stern glare.

"Oh, wow, Andy, wow that's crazy. An annulment. Are you okay with that?" Ricky ignored his mother's suspicious gaze.

"Yeah, more than okay. I never thought she'd have a problem with it, but I also didn't expect her to do the legwork. You see Sharon. A church wedding may not be totally out of the question. Imagine that."

"Yes indeed. Imagine that. He moves in strange and mysterious ways His wonders to perform."

If Andy hadn't still been so stunned, he might have noticed the sarcasm belying the broad smile on her face, as well as the odd undercurrent between her and her boys. As it was, it went totally over his head.

A little later, when they were in the bedroom putting their clothes away, Sharon brushed a hand down Andy's back, gently rubbing at the base of his spine. "Are you sure you're okay with all this?" She asked. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet and that was worrying her. "I don't want you to feel pressured."

"I don't feel pressured. Oh my God, Sharon, this is a good thing. I guess sometimes it still shocks me when things go my way. Sandra and I were toxic for so long I never expected that call or for her to actually get things started."

"As long as you're okay with it."

"More than okay. Hell, I've been divorced for a couple decades now. I don't feel anything for Sandra anymore, not even anger." Which was surprising because anger had defined his relationship with his ex for so long. At the time of their divorce, their relationship had disintegrated into something ugly, bitter and spiteful. He liked to think that maybe they'd finally moved past that. Since Nicole's wedding, they'd actually been able to be civil with each other and she'd even expressed happiness for him in that phone call. "Maybe this will give us a chance for some real closure."

"We can certainly hope."

"Hey Mom, Andy." Ricky poked his head into the bedroom. "I have to catch my flight. Rusty's going to run me over to LAX." He made his way over to Andy first, pulling him into a big hug. "Thanks again for a great trip, Andy. It was a lot of fun."

"Yeah, you're welcome," Andy beamed. "I'll let you know about that fishing trip. Red Snapper season opens in March, but I was thinking about maybe trying for tuna in June."

"Either is fine with me, but I'd love to get a big tuna."

"Tuna it is then." Andy patted him on the shoulder and passed him off to his mother.

"Bye Mom." He gave her an even bigger hug than Andy's, lifting her feet off the floor making her giggle.

"Good-bye honey." As usual, it was nearly impossible for her to stay irritated with him. Especially when he was leaving. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too. But I'll be back in June and you and Andy promised you'd come up for a Giants/Dodgers game, don't forget."

"As soon as we get the schedule we'll plan it."

"Good. And I'll let you know as soon as I get the annulment questionnaire back from Dad."

"You won't be getting it."

"What?" Everyone froze, eyes riveted on Sharon.

"I sent a text to your father this morning. I asked him to send the questionnaire to me. This is my annulment, Ricky, and I will take care of it. I appreciate the steps that you kids have taken but moving forward Andy and I have got this."

"Oh, well. Okay then. Keep me posted."

"I will let you know about any significant decisions. You have a safe trip. I love you."

"I love you too." He kissed her cheek then followed Rusty out of the condo.

* * *

Much later as dusk turned to dark Andy found Sharon out on the balcony, staring out into the night.

"Did you have a nice talk with Emily?"

"I had an illuminating talk with Emily."

"That sounds kind of cryptic."

Sharon turned into the light and his heart gave a little jump to see her eyes swimming with tears. He quickly moved to her. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Responding to his alarm, she quickly brushed at her eyes. What was it about a woman's tears that gave men such a scare? "I'm not crying. I'm just…Okay, I'm crying. Andy, I've made so many mistakes."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about what a selfish ass my ex-husband is."

"Okay, I'm all about discussing that." He smiled in an effort to lighten the mood. "But you're freezing."

"I'm fine."

"Babe, I can feel you shivering. Let's go inside and discuss this."

She nodded and they moved back into the living room. Andy grabbed the TV remote, shut off "Sports Center" and sat on the couch, lifting his arm. Sharon plunked down beside him, tucking her long legs up under her and accepting his invitation to cuddle into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I knew there was more to this story than what Ricky told me. There is no way Jack rolled over that easy. And I was right. Ricky can brush things off but Emily is an open book. I can tell when she's covering something up."

"And you got her to crack?"

"Yes."

"Guess that's what happens when your mother is a crackerjack interrogator. So, what did she have to say?"

"I don't think she told me everything, but I got a pretty good picture of how things went down. They tried to get Jack to sign the papers without resorting to the ultimatum, but he refused. Nothing they said could make him change his mind until they threatened him. They told him they would never see or talk to him again unless he agreed to the annulment."

"That's pretty close to what Ricky said. He just left out the first part."

"And that they also threatened him with you."

"Me? What kind of a threat am I?"

"Evidently, bigger than you think. They said that if he didn't sign the papers you would be the only grandfather their future children would ever know. That's when it finally dawned on him that they were serious and he agreed to sign the papers. Are you smiling?"

"I can't help it. I like the idea of being a grandfather to your kid's kids."

"Yes, well you'll sure as hell be a better one than Jack. I cannot believe he put our children through that. Ricky was so matter of fact about it, which isn't surprising, that's Ricky. But, Emily sounded so…" her voice broke.

"So what? " He rubbed her arm comfortingly.

"So hurt…I did that." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"You did _not_ do that. Jack _did_ that."

"But I helped. I'm an enabler, Andy."

"You _were_ an enabler."

"Semantics. All their life I tried to shield my children from who their father really was. When he didn't show up for things, I made excuses for him so they wouldn't be hurt. When we separated, I refused to allow him to come around the kids if he'd been drinking so they rarely saw that side of him again. I didn't divorce him, well, for a lot of reasons, but one of them was because I wanted complete control over their relationship with him. I wanted to be there to protect them. How sad it is it that I had to protect them from their own father?"

"You were doing what was best for your kids. That isn't wrong. There are a lot of women and men who stay in that situation. You didn't. And you didn't completely absolve Jack. When he refused to get help, you made him leave. You set up clear ground rules he had to follow if he was going to be around you and the kids"

"I did, but it took me a while to get to that point. I covered up for Jack plenty of times, at work, with his family, with creditors. Yes, I did finally stop but still... I feel like what I taught my kids was to hide things. Like Emily telling the boys that Jack was drinking again but not me, and Ricky trying to gloss over what happened at Jacks. Those are the kinds of things I used to do with my parents all the time when I didn't want them to know how bad things were. Sometimes I think I was protecting myself as much as I was protecting them."

"Because they didn't want you to marry Jack?"

"Yes. I tried to hide how bad it was because I was ashamed. And before you say it, I know it was Jack's shame, not mine. But I had plenty of things that I was ashamed of too. I was ashamed that I'd allowed Jack to seduce me into marrying him and putting him through law school with promises every intuition I had told me he wouldn't keep. I was ashamed that I continually let him off the hook and shouldered all the responsibility for our lives and our children. I was ashamed every time I covered up for him or believed him when he promised he would do better…I don't know… Maybe if I'd let the kids see the real Jack from the start, the one who was falling down drunk on the lap of a woman in a bar while I was giving birth to Ricky, the one who had no valid excuse for not showing up for their birthdays and Christmas or for their dance recitals and football games. The one who drank, gambled, and stole from us. The one who used me time and time again, making promises he never had any intention of keeping. The one who left me feeling like a complete failure as a woman and a wife. The one who has never _ever_ given a damn about anyone else but himself whether he was drunk or stone cold sober. Maybe if I'd let them see all that from the start they would know just who he is and just what they can expect from him." Even as she said it, she knew she could never have done any of that.

Andy's chest tightened at the rawness of Sharon's pain, he could feel it right in his core. "I'm so sorry he hurt you like that."

Sharon's eyes stung at the rough emotion in his voice and the way his strong arm pulled her against him even more tightly.

"You didn't deserve that kind of pain. But you did the best with the hand you were dealt. You always try to see the best in people, Sharon. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. It worked with Rusty; you saw something in him that no one else saw. It didn't work with Jack. You couldn't know that he was never going to be able to get it together. You were preserving your children's relationship with their father. If you hadn't and Jack had cleaned up his act, turned things around, it might have taken him years to regain their love and trust."

Sharon studied Andy's profile, his tight lips, and sorrowful eyes. She certainly wasn't the only one with a painful past. Cupping his cheek in her palm, she rubbed her thumb over his rough jaw knowing that what he'd just described was exactly what happened to him. After their divorce, Sandra had done everything in her power to poison Nicole against him. Even when he'd gotten sober and fought tooth and nail to have a relationship with her, Sandra denied him, unwilling to offer him any trust or compassion. Still, he fought. He stayed in Valencia even though he hated the heat in the valley and the long commute to LA because that's where Sandra and Larry lived with Nicole. He attended her field hockey games, sitting alone and cheering for her even though Sandra made sure he felt unwelcome. He sent her birthday and Christmas gifts and kept in contact with her even when she ignored him. It had taken years but he'd finally broken through her barriers, barriers that in many ways were put there by her mother. They now had an enviable relationship, but how many years had they lost because of Sandra?

"It's tough Sharon. Being a parent isn't for the weak, is it?"

"No, it sure isn't."

"I blamed Sandra for what she did to Nicole and me for a long time. But, I can see now that she was doing what she thought was best for Nicole. She didn't trust me."

"She was wrong Andy." God, she would have given anything for Jack to have put even a tiny bit of the effort Andy had put into repairing his relationship with Nicole into fixing what was broken between him and their kids.

"I thought so too. I still think so. But the family therapist I went to was big on looking at things from the other person's perspective. What if I'd turned out to be Jack and couldn't keep my sobriety?"

"She still should have let you try. You and Nicole deserved that chance."

"And that's what you were doing for Jack and your kids. Hindsight. We can't live our lives looking back."

"No, we can't. I just hate that they felt like they had to go through that and took matters into their own hands. Sometimes my know it all son forgets that I'm the parent. He's like most men-thinks he knows what's best for me- and he's always trying to fix things. "

"I can't say blame him for that. It's how we're wired. God knows I'd love to be able to fix all this for you."

"Well, you can't. You're doing exactly what I need you to be doing."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Listening to me. I'm not talking to you about this because I expect you to be able to fix it. I'm talking to you because I need someone to listen, to understand and _maybe_ offer an insight or two."

"That's easy."

"See. Men always think it's so hard to please a woman. We're actually pretty easy."

"Some of you are. But let's not forget, your son was not in on this alone. Our lovely daughters had their hands all over this little plan. And, given all the skulking around he was doing on the balcony last night while you were talking to Ricky, I think your youngest was in on it as well."

"You think all four of them conspired against us?"

"Not against us, _for_ us. I don't think Ricky and Emily went to see Jack because they didn't think you would do it, or because they didn't think you could handle it. I think they aren't quite as blind to who their father is as you think they are. They knew Jack wasn't going to agree to the annulment and that you have no leverage over him anymore."

"What do you mean leverage?"

"Think about it. How did you get him to finally talk to your kids after five years of silence? You blackmailed him."

"I prefer the term coercion."

"I call it like I see it, sweetheart. Blackmail, coercion, whatever you want to call it, it all comes down to you telling him you wouldn't throw his sorry ass out on the street before he found an apartment if he called and talked to them. Then, how did you get him to agree to the divorce when he didn't want it? You threatened to take him to court over all the back child support he owed you."

"You know, when you put it all together like that, I sound like a character on the Sopranos."

He laughed. "Nah, you're too classy for the Sopranos, but you can be tough. That's one of the many things that I love about you. But now that you're divorced, you don't have any of that leverage anymore. You've already told him he's not allowed to come here looking for handouts or a couch to sleep on. Legally and monetarily, you don't have any ties or responsibility for him. Even when it comes to your kids, they are all grown up and you're done being their buffer. The only option you had was to approach him emotionally and try to convince him to sign the papers because it was the right thing to do. Given how that worked out when the kids tried it, I doubt you would have had a chance. Like it or not, your kids have the leverage now. They are the ones laying down the ground rules and Jack is the one who's going to have to live by them or walk away. Sounds like he's choosing to live by them."

"Of course he is," Sharon snorted. "He's not going to cut off his nose to spite his face. "

"Huh?"

"Look, I know deep down, way inside that selfish, narcissistic heart of his, Jack does love the kids, or what passes for love in his world."

"And his ex-wife."

"What? " Her whole body tightened and she looked up at him with a surprised frown.

"You don't fight that hard to keep something you don't love. If he didn't still love you he'd have no problem signing those papers."

"He didn't sign them because that would be a 'win' for me. Jack doesn't like to lose, especially to me. And he didn't keep m. We're divorced. I'm living with you." She lifted her hand wiggling the finger adorned by his engagement ring. "I'm wearing this."

"But we aren't married yet. Keeping you from getting an annulment is a good way of keeping you from marrying me."

"Except it isn't. I'm marrying you, Andy, with or without an annulment."

"Yes, but maybe he didn't believe that. Maybe that's why he fought so hard."

"That's ridiculous. Jack is just pissed that I went through with the divorce and that I have another man in my life. He's always been like that. Just the rumor of me possibly seeing somebody else always had him scrambling home. He might not have cared about making the changes that he needed to make to be in my life again but he didn't want any other man there either."

"Jack is a fucking idiot. Any man who would walk away from a woman like you has a screw loose somewhere. But I'm not going to complain. His loss is my gain."

"And mine," she kissed the back of his hand. "But the point I was trying to make is that, while I'm sure Jack cares about the kids, he went years and years without seeing them. I don't think that's why he agreed to sign the papers."

Andy had to mull that over for a minute. He couldn't imagine that being a part of his kid's lives wasn't reason enough for Jack to sign the papers. He would do just about anything to stay involved in Nicole's life. Finally, he asked, "Why do you think he did it then?"

"Jack is a spoiled, indulged child. He was the baby in the family, a late life baby. His parents always gave him everything he wanted. He never had to work for anything, never had to take any responsibility at all. When we were first married, I took care of everything. I found us an apartment, I called to get the phone lines and the cable set up and I paid all the bills and the rent. I was 22 years old, straight out of college. I'd lived in my parent's house all my life and then the dorm at school. I didn't know any more than Jack did about all that stuff, but I learned fast. I did it because I wanted Jack to be able to focus on law school. Once he passed the bar and we moved into our new house I divvied up the responsibilities, thinking we'd be on equal ground. Within 6 months, our electricity was shut off. He'd forgotten to pay the bills and threw away all the warnings. I guess he just thought if he ignored them they'd go away and instead he decided to gamble with the money he was supposed to use to pay the bill."

"Jesus Christ," Andy sighed. He might have royally screwed up his personal life, but he'd always paid his bills and his mortgage and he'd always prided himself on having his child support payment out on time, most times early. It was the one way he had of being there for Nicole.

"Thank God I didn't give him the mortgage or we might have lost our house." All these years later, she could still feel the anxiety of those years in the pit of her stomach. "Jack signed the papers because one day he's going to show up on their doorstep and expect them to take care of him, just as I did every time he came home with his tail between his legs. He knows damn well he's going to need them and THAT'S why he signed the papers and that makes me just about as mad as anything else. I don't want them stuck having to take care of him. They should not have to deal with that."

"If it happens that will be their choice, Sharon. Remember, Switzerland."

"Yes, yes," she waved him off.

"Maybe they'll just do what you did. Help him get back on his feet and send him on his merry way."

"One day, he won't be well enough to send on his merry way."

"So, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. "

She twisted in his arms so she could see his face. "It really didn't bother you at all that Nicole took matters into her own hands and went to Sandra about the annulment?"

"Not at all. The fact that my daughter is so happy about me marrying you and that she cared enough about wanting me to be happy to go to her mother and get the ball rolling is kind of a miracle for me."

"It's not a miracle, Andy. It happened because you put in a lot of hard work. You made the effort and now you're seeing the rewards."

"There was a time I wasn't sure I'd ever get here, with Nicole and with you. I guess sometimes it pays to be a Flynn. Nothing like a stubborn Irishman."

"A handsome, sexy, stubborn Irishman." She leaned up to press a kiss to the ticklish spot just behind his earlobe, giggling when he shivered. But, instead of laughing as she thought he would, he regarded her with a serious look.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"I want you to be 100% honest with me here. I can take it."

"I'm always honest with you, Andy. What is it?" Now she grew serious too.

"You being upset about the kids going to Jack for the annulment. Does it have anything to do with maybe wanting to have taken some time before going to see Jack? Maybe slow things down a little so you could think about it a little more."

"No. Oh my God, Andy. No. Slowing things down is the furthest thing from my mind. When have you known me to be shy about putting the brakes on when I haven't been ready for something? If I had any qualms at all about marrying you, I wouldn't have said yes. I would have told you that I needed time to think it over. But I don't. I'm right here with you Andy, all the way. There's nothing I want more than to be your wife."

"Good, because I can't wait to be your husband." He lifted her hand, eyeing the ring that looked so perfect on her finger. "I hate that you're taking that off again."

"I know. I promised that I wouldn't. But I didn't know Fritz was going to stay in DC with Brenda until the New Year. We need to tell him first before we tell everyone else. It's only a few more days. Besides, it will be fun to have a party and surprise everyone."

His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Way back when I would never have taken Sharon Raydor for a party girl."

"Yeah, well I'm full of surprises." The crinkles deepened when he recognized she was using his own words against him.

"You know, speaking of Raydor. Have you thought about that?"

"What?"

"Your last name after we get married. Will you change it to Flynn or keep Raydor?"

"How do you feel about it?"

"Well, if I had my way, of course, I'd like you to take my last name, but I'm not a caveman. I want you to do what makes you comfortable."

" _But…_ "

"But Sharon Flynn sure does have a nice ring to it."

He sounded so hopeful, it caused her heart to constrict. If it wasn't for her job she'd change it in a heartbeat. "Yes, it really does. I have thought about it, Andy. I do want to take your last name, but I've been known at the PAB as Raydor for a very long time now. It might be confusing to change it, especially with two Flynn's in the same department."

"Well, it's nothing that you have to decide today. You can think about it."

"I will. But whatever I decide, I'll always be Sharon Flynn here." She tapped on her chest. "You know that right?"

"I do." He kissed the top of her head and pulled her in close. "God, I don't know how old Fritzie does it. Living almost 3,000 miles away from his wife, only seeing her a couple times a month. I don't ever want to be that far from you."

"And you won't be. That's why I didn't take the NFL job, we would have been apart for far too long. But I really appreciated how supportive you were about it ."

"I just want you to be happy."

"I am Andy. You make me happier than I can ever remember being. We're going to get through all this and someday, God willing, we'll wonder why we even worried about it.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N As always I just want to let you all know how much your continued support of this story means to me. Your continued dedication to Sharon and Andy keeps feeding my muse._

* * *

"Andy, can you help me with this tie?"

"Sure kid." Andy set his spoon down and rose from the dining room table where he was having breakfast with Sharon.

"I've tried it like 10 times just the way you showed me but I can't get it right." Rusty turned his back allowing Andy to lean over him from behind and direct him in deftly flipping the tie into a perfect knot.

"Remember, wide end on the right, small on the left and you're only going to move this wide side. Put the wide end over the small end here, and then up into the loop from underneath. "

Rusty shook his head with defeat. "I don't know how you do it so quickly."

"Practice. You'll get it." Andy turned him around, straightened the knot then gave him a pat on the shoulder.

Watching them, Sharon warmed at the very natural father and son moment shared between the man she loved and her son. "You look very handsome this morning," she said to Rusty.

"Yeah, thanks." He grimaced and tugged at the tie. "I just hate how it feels like it's choking me."

"You better get used to it, Andy sat back in his chair. "If you're going to be a lawyer you're going to spend a lot of time in a suit and tie."

"I know." Rusty sat with them at the table and grabbed the box of Wholegrain Cheerios.

"Are you looking forward to your internship?" Sharon tried to ignore the several spoonfuls of sugar he added to his cereal.

"I am. I'm a little nervous."

"You'll be fine. Just listen to Andrea. You'll learn a lot from her. Do as she says and-"

"And don't irritate her, I know, I know."

"I never told you not to irritate her." Sharon was taken by surprise. "Who told you that?"

"Him." Rusty pointed at Andy who had just taken a mouth full of oatmeal.

" _Andy._ " She turned to him with exasperation.

Andy swallowed and shrugged. "What? Come on, I love the kid and all but, he can be…" He froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth, realizing what he'd just blurted out. "Well, uh, "he fumbled, "he can be, you know…irritating."

"Said the pot to the kettle. " Sharon smiled into her coffee mug, amused by his discomfort. It was the first time she'd ever heard Andy say he loved her son and that sentiment did all kinds of funny things to her insides.

"What does that mean?" Rusty tried to focus on what Sharon was saying but was still trying to process Andy's comment.

"It means that you are both know-it-alls and that in turn makes you both come off as irritating at times." Sharon rose to bring her cereal bowl and coffee mug to the sink. While she was rinsing her bowl, she heard her phone go off back at the table.

"Who is it?" She asked Andy.

He took her phone, swiped it and keyed in her password. "It's Caroline Mitchum."

"Caroline?" She wiped her wet hands on a dishrag then took the phone from Andy. Caroline had taken over for her as the LAPD's Women's Coordinator when she left the PSB to take over Major Crimes. Since the Women's Coordinator handled sexual harassment issues and hostile work environments the department liked the position filled by someone in Professional Standards. For almost 10 years that had been her. "Yes, hello Caroline." She wandered off with the phone while Andy and Rusty finished cleaning up.

Andy's curiosity was piqued and he tried to hear what Sharon was saying to Caroline but Rusty began yammering on about having Gus over for dinner when he got back from his holiday visit with his mother in Las Vegas and he couldn't hear much of anything. Finally, he cut the kid off mid-sentence. "Yeah, yeah, Gus, dinner, okay, now sshh…" He wagged a hand at him in a 'keep it down gesture and walked to the edge of the kitchen hoping to catch some of the conversation but Sharon was too damn soft-spoken.

"You know it's rude to eavesdrop, right?"

Andy rolled his eyes and smirked. "Like I said, irritating."

Finally, Sharon clicked off on the call and before she could even set her phone down Andy asked, "What did Caroline want?"

Sharon sighed. "To talk to me about the Assistant Chief position."

"I had a feeling. I told you that you should go for it."

"Andy, we've discussed this. I'm happy where I am."

"I know you are. But you'd be really good."

Sharon grabbed her coat, her stomach knotting. She'd tried to put her worries about the vacated position aside while on their Christmas holiday, but now it was right there, front and center. She wasn't going to be able to avoid it for much longer. Chief Pope had said he would begin the promotion process and interviews after the New Year. She knew she was on the shortlist, and that there were others on the short list who might do her division harm if they got the job.

"Karma really is a bitch, I guess," she reflected.

"Why do you say that?" Andy took his coat from her and scooped the car keys out of the bowl where they kept them.

"After Chief Delk died, as the Woman's Coordinator I went to Brenda and tried to push her into interviewing for the position. She said she didn't want it, that she was happy where she was. I didn't give that answer much credence. I thought she was crazy not to go for it. Now I understand why she didn't."

"Why's that?"

"Because I love the work that I am doing, it's challenging and fulfilling in ways that my work in FID wasn't. And I love the people I work with. If Brenda felt even a small percentage of what I feel, I get it now. But what I saw then was a woman reluctant to grab her power, a woman who didn't want to step on the toes of the man she'd had an affair with and who was now also up for the same position. And that is just one of the many reasons I don't think Pope will give me the job."

"Because you convinced Brenda to go for it?"

"Not just convinced her to go for it, actively supported her for the job over him… and he knows it."

* * *

There would be no easing back into work after an almost two-week absence. Sharon had barely gotten started looking at her budget when she got the call that a body had been found. With most of her team off at active shooter training and Andy at the doctors trying to get re-instated for full duty, it was up to her to head to the crime scene. She'd just pulled up beside the three black and whites and the medical examiner's cars when her phone started going off. Swiping the screen, she saw the text was from Fritz who had returned early from DC.

" _Provenza cheated. Major Crimes failed training. Davis on the warpath. Will need to redo the training after the written exam."_

"Shit." She cursed under her breath. Frigging Provenza. She should have known he'd pull a stunt like this. He hadn't taken the training seriously. He never did. All morning he'd been griping about it, trying to find ways he wouldn't have to attend. After 40 years on the job, he liked to think he knew everything there was to know about police work and without Andy there to take the tactical lead and keep him at least semi in line, what happened was almost inevitable. Still, she really wasn't looking forward to having Deputy Chief Winnie Davis breathing down her neck. It was no secret that as the Deputy Chief second in command to former Assistant Chief Russell Taylor; Winnie had expected the Assistant Chief position to be hers by default after he was killed in the courtroom shootout. When Fritz was directed to fill the interim position, she made no secret of her displeasure. Sharon also knew that her own name, along with several others, was being floated about as a possible replacement, putting her right in the line of fire. So far, she'd been able to avoid Winnie's hostility, but considering that trainings fell under the unpleasant woman's jurisdiction and one of Sharon's team had just metaphorically spit in her face, she was sure she was going to hear about it.

It was while she was in the crime tent examining the dead body of a young woman curled up in rigor in the fetal position, that she was interrupted by the arrival of her team.

"Ah, good morning, Captain." Provenza breezed into the tent as if all was right with the world.

"Sorry we're late. But, overall, I'd say that the training went off without a hitch. "

Sharon stood and faced him with a look that told him she already knew everything and wasn't pleased. "Acting Assistant Chief Howard already texted me, Lieutenant."

"Yeah, but if you don't count that very last moment…"

"I'm unofficially reprimanding you for failing to comply with the rules."

Given his Captain's near obsession with following the rules, the slap on the wrist was a best-case scenario for him and he took it as such. Rather than argue his point, which would get him nowhere and only piss her off even more, he kept his mouth shut. While she questioned Buzz, his eyes moved to her left hand, surprised to see the ring finger bare.

Damn. That meant he owed Tao five bucks.

Given the way Andy was acting before they left for their holiday ski trip, nervous, giddy, grinning like an idiot in love, a side of Flynn he'd never seen until he fell in love with their Captain, he'd thought for sure that he was ready to pop the question. So, there could only be two reasons her finger was still bare. Either Flynn hadn't been able to grab his balls and just do it or…Oh God, maybe the Captain had said "no".

Funny how that speculation caused his heart to plummet. Not very long ago he'd thought Flynn hooking up with the Captain was about the worse idea his friend had ever had, and Flynn had a history of bad ideas. Okay, well, maybe he was the one with the bad ideas and Flynn usually went along for the ride, but still, he'd thought Andy was nuts. Yeah, the Captain was gorgeous, had legs that wouldn't quit and a surprisingly warm, nurturing heart. He got why Flynn was attracted to her. But getting involved with her romantically was another thing altogether. It felt impetuous, ill thought out and based on an infatuation, all motivations characteristic of Andy Flynn. More importantly, it had the makings of a disaster, possibly destroying everything they'd built in the Major Crimes division. Of course, he'd been wrong about all that. Very wrong, even if he had yet to admit it to anyone but himself.

As it turned out, Flynn was good for Sharon. He softened her hard edges, made her smile and loosened her up. She laughed more when he was around and displayed an easy affection that at one time would have seemed astonishing. Some women were natural flirts, teasing men 18 to 80 whether they were interested in them or not. Sharon Raydor was not that kind of woman. She didn't flirt with men to butter them up or get what she wanted. In fact, he had never seen her flirt with any man except Andy, not even her ex-husband.

And Sharon was good for Flynn. She'd been able to work her way under his abrasive, cynical armor to find the lonely, unhappy man inside, changing his life in a 180 that was nothing short of incredible. Her calm disposition and serenity seemed to settle his intense, volatile nature. Anyone who knew Andy 10 years ago would barely recognize the man he was today, kinder, happier and finally at peace. Sure, he could still be an ass at times, but Sharon softened him in much the same way he softened her. Over the years he'd watched the guy go from woman to woman, never emotionally involved, never finding what he needed. Maybe because, as it turned out, what he needed was the woman he had once referred to as the "ice queen of FID". Sure, he supposed the same could be said for him, until he'd found his darling Patrice, but at least he'd been caught six times. Six times down the aisle. He winced. Maybe Andy was right. Maybe he was the impetuous one, rushing from one marriage to another. Flynn had never even come close to walking down the aisle again, at least not until now. Maybe that's why seeing the guy fall so hard for their very self-contained boss had been so shocking…and scary. He'd never seen Flynn crash, and given his history with the bottle, he never wanted to. If the Captain had turned down his proposal…Well hell….He could only hope that isn't what happened.

* * *

Sharon was slipping the surgical booties over her Jimmy Choo heels when Andy arrived to join her and Julio at the morgue. He didn't say anything, just grabbed his scrubs and started putting them on. That wasn't a good sign. If he'd gotten the all clear, she knew he'd be talking her ear off.

"Well?" She finally asked. Andy scowled. "I take it the news isn't good." She rested a sympathetic hand on his arm.

"He still won't sign off on me returning to full duty. I told him that I barely have any numbness now at all, that it comes and goes, but until it's completely gone, he won't sign off. "

"Andy, there's a good reason for that," she opened the door to the exam room and he followed her in. "You can't be handling a firearm if your hand goes numb, you'll be a danger to yourself and to others."

His sigh told her that he knew she was right but it also spoke of a world of disappointment.

"She wasn't raped," Dr. Morales said. "I broke her legs out of rigor. There were no signs of sexual assault, which will have to be our silver lining because the story only gets more brutal. At first, I noticed bruising on your victim's neck and petechia."

"Kendall says she was strangled?" Andy looked up from the file he was reading.

"But it's worse than that. Kendall didn't have the benefit of seeing an x-ray. Unfortunately, I do. Dislocation of her C2 vertebrae. Severed her spinal cord. So the killer was very strong. Or very angry. Maybe both. The pain would've been unbearable. And there are these weird post-mortem indentations on her arm. See these marks running across it?

"From something she was lying on? " Sharon asked.

"I wish I could be more certain, but without knowing where she was murdered... this dress... Hmm."

Julio's cell phone went off. "Ma'am, text from Sykes. No Missing person report with us for someone matching the vic's description."

Morales interrupted, "You know what? Stay here." As soon as the door shut, Andy turned to Sharon.

"Hey, you know my buddy in Operations? You remember Clint?"

"Mm-hmm." Sharon tried to remain focused on the case, but the minute Andy mentioned Operations she knew where he was going.

"He says that Winnie Davis is up in arms about the way Provenza left training, claiming he cheated. "

Sharon glanced up at Julio and he tipped his hand back and forth in a gesture indicating, maybe a little bit.

"Well, it wouldn't have happened had I been there."

"Light duty only till the doctor says otherwise." Though he said nothing, she could feel his frustration and made a note to keep him as involved intellectually and strategically in the case as possible.

"Anyway, Davis could use this cheating business as a way to push you out of the running for Assistant Chief."

"Let her. How many times do I have to say it? I'm happy where I am."

Andy looked to Julio for back up and Julio jumped in. "You would be good at the job, though, ma'am. Deputy Chief Davis? Who knows how she feels about us. "

"Well, I think Chief Howard... "

"Will always be former FBI. The department will never accept him as Assistant Chief on a permanent basis." Andy paused, remembering their breakfast conversation regarding know-it-alls and tendencies to irritate, adding, "Uh, my opinion."

Morales re-entered the room. "I knew it. There was a call earlier asking if we'd found a woman named Allie King, age 26, and the description of her clothes match down to the blue-on-blue pattern of this dress."

"Was it a call from Missing Persons?"

"No. Private investigator. Said he was representing Ms. King's boyfriend, whose name I don't have. But the PI's name was Clark Farman."

"I found Allie King's Facebook page. Profile pic matches, but her page is private.

"Clark Farman. Well, I wonder if he'd sit down with us for a minute."

* * *

"Hey, guys."

Everyone came to attention when Rusty entered the room in a suit and tie.

"Who died?" Provenza asked.

"It's my first day interning at the D.A.'s office, and Andrea sent me over to get video from your murder. "

"How's it going so far? " Sharon asked.

"It's fine, fine. But the, uh, the servers are down, so I'm running around picking up stuff... documents, briefs, crime scene videos, and, um, coffee. Mom, do you have a second?"

"Mm-hmm"

Provenza shook his head. "First you want to be a journalist, now a lawyer. Where did I go wrong?"

Rusty grinned at the older man's mocking dismay. "I'm irredeemable, Lieutenant." He moved in close to his mother, speaking softly for privacy. "Um, okay, so I just got this really weird text from Gus this morning from Vegas. Um... "Visit with Mom okay. Been thinking when I'm back we should sit down and discuss the future."

"Did you call him?"

"Yeah, of course I did. " He knew by now it was the first thing she would suggest doing. She was always telling him that important things should be discussed in person, that it was too hard to gauge tone and intent in texts and emails. "But he said that... that he... he couldn't talk and that what he had to say needed to be done face to face."

"Are you two having problems lately?"

"N-No. I mean, I've... I've been watching myself for things, like, unconscious selfishness... and... And not paying attention and not wasting other people's time and... "

"Gus may have something good to say, Rusty. Try not to worry so much. " Though she understood why he always thought the worse, given the life he'd led prior to moving in with her, she hoped one day he'd be able to expect the best.

Buzz returned and approached them. "Here, Rusty, this has all the video from where the body was found and part of an interview with the P.I. who claimed to be searching for the victim."

"Thank you."

* * *

Sharon was in the middle of watching the interview with Jeffrey Day, the very wealthy, very angry ex-boyfriend of their victim Allie King when Andy poked his head in.

"Uh, Sharon. Deputy Chief Winnie Davis is here."

" _Now?_ I'm watching an important interview. Tell her I'll be out in a second."

Winnie stepped right into the open doorway clearly not appreciating the dismissive impatience in Sharon's tone. "It can't wait. If you could please join me." Though she used the word please, it was a firm order.

Sharon tried to contain her irritation. "Grab me if something happens," she said to Andy as she passed by him to follow Davis.

Provenza watched carefully for the door to close before turning to Buzz. "Headphones Buzz. Headphones. I mean, how do you expect us to hear them?"

Buzz rolled his eyes and put the headphones on while Provenza moved closer to the door trying to hear what Davis was saying to Sharon."

"I expected more from you, Captain," Winnie said sternly.

"More what?"

"An e-mail, a text, anything to explain your division's disrespect for training on the biggest safety issue we face as a department."

"Did you not hear about the young woman that we found strangled to death? " Seriously, where were the woman's priorities?

"You could've kicked that case up to Hollywood."

"And violate LAPD policy. Why?"

"Because when our most overly resourced division blows off training, it sends a message across the rank and file."

"Overly resourced?" There it was. Winnie Davis did have it in for Major Crimes.

"And Lieutenant Provenza's dismissive attitude set a poor example. "

"For which he has been harshly reprimanded." Okay, so maybe that was laying it on a little thick, but Winnie didn't have to know that.

Winnie noticed Provenza in the window eavesdropping. "Do you mind if we step over here?" She moved Sharon further away from her team.

Watching them move away from the door Wes asked Andy, "So who's that?"

"That is Deputy Chief of Operations Winnie Davis. And she's here because you guys cheated during training. "That still gnawed at him. How the hell could he have Sharon's back if he wasn't even going to be allowed out in the field? Not that he would make that complaint to Sharon. His very independent fiancée had once told him, under no uncertain terms, that she had been looking out for her own best interests at work for a very long time and she didn't need him for that. Well, maybe she didn't, but it wasn't going to stop him. He was always going to have her back, whether she liked it or not.

"No, we didn't cheat," Julio said. "The lieutenant sacrificed himself for others."

"As is my nature. All right, get rid of the headphones. We need to go back to work."

Winnie crossed her arms with a glare. "Why are you publicly challenging my authority?"

Sharon was flabbergasted; the woman was deliberately trying to pick a fight with her. "I didn't... Look it up. A murder victim found on public property is de facto a major crime. "

"Which I hope you can solve by tomorrow when I expect your division to at least take the written tests. And while you're at it, why don't you schedule a new training session."

"Uh, Captain. Interview's getting good." Andy stood in the doorway looking at the two women.

"I'll be right there. " She waited until Andy had gone back in the room, inhaled to keep her annoyance in check, then turned back to Winnie in her most conciliatory, respectful manner. "We'll do everything we can, Chief. Should I expect to be seeing more of you while these promotion issues get sorted? "

"I think I made my point. Go ahead. Your _boyfriend's_ calling you."

Stunned, Sharon pivoted on her heels with a glare. What the hell was that all about? A fresh swell of anger rushed through her veins and she rubbed at the headache building in her temples.

"Ah. Pleasant conversation?" Provenza tried to smooth out the situation when she re-entered the room, but he did feel bad for having caused her problems with Davis. He probably should have just sucked it up and done the training properly.

"It was bound to happen. " As pissed as she was, Sharon tried to brush it off. It wouldn't do to get her whole team worked up. She'd never liked the idea of pitting divisions against each other. Ultimately, they were all one team whose job it was to protect the citizens of Los Angeles. When people lost sight of that, when it became personal, that's when the trouble started and God knows she'd seen enough of that over at the PSB. "She's been desperate to complain about me for months."

And evidently, she wasn't done. After rarely seeing or hearing from Davis she was suddenly everywhere, monitoring every move Sharon was making and the first thing the next morning she was summoned down to Fritz's office to meet with him and Davis over a request she had made late the previous night. The team had been following a suspect and when that suspect was pulled over by a local black and white, she had requested that the officer let him go so they could continue to follow him. When the officer said it was a "no-go" that the guy was drunk, blasted, and could end up killing someone, it was the end of the story for Sharon. But not for Winnie. Now they both stood in front of Fritz's desk, one accusatory, one defensive.

"You tried to bully an officer into actions that could've made her liable for a crime."

 _"Bully?"_ The sheer gall of this woman was appalling. "I made a request. We had reason to believe our suspect was heading to a location of interest for... "

"He was driving drunk," Winnie interrupted. "And Officer Ahern felt... "

"We did not know he was drunk when I made the request. Everything I've done is by the book. If you would like to have Professional Standards look into it... "

"Wow! Offer to be interviewed by your old friends over at PSB? How brave." The outrageous, over the top condescension Winnie was displaying was enough to cause Fritz to call an end to what he considered a ridiculous waste of his time.

"Okay, I don't know about brave," he said. "But an Internal Affairs investigation is completely unwarranted. Major Crimes was set up outside the suspect's house. How could they know he was drunk?

"But he's sober now, and the sooner I can talk with him, the better."

Fritz nodded, giving Sharon permission to leave.

"Thank you."

Once Sharon was gone, Fritz regarded the severe-looking angry woman standing before him. "If you really want to replace me, Winnie, you're going about this the worst way possible. " Accusing Sharon Raydor of all people of not following the rules made her look petty at best, foolish at worst. And making enemies of everyone else up for the position she wanted was not going to earn her any points.

"Thanks for your advice, sir. But in the absence of firm leadership, I have a duty to prevent this department from breaking up into self-interested factions. Anything else you want me to know?" Her disdain for him was palpable, making it quite apparent that Sharon Raydor was not the only person in her line of fire.

* * *

Andy glanced up from his computer when he saw Sharon returning from Fritz's office. He could tell she was pissed by how fast she was walking and the hard click of her high heels on the floor. He followed her into her office, watching her slam a folder down on her desk. Oh yeah, she was pissed. She didn't show her anger often, but when she did, well, watch out.

"What did that bitch want this time?"

"Andy! " Her eyes snapped to the door to make sure no one heard him. "Shut the door."

He did so and then approached her desk. "So?"

"She accused me of bullying that officer last night, trying to force her into letting a drunk driver back out on the road."

"That's bullshit, Sharon!" he exploded. "The minute she said he was too drunk to be let back on the road you dropped it."

"That's what I said. I offered to bring the case to Internal Affairs."

"Are you kidding? They're not, are they?"

"No. Fritz made her stand down."

"Damn. What the hell is she after?"

"A promotion... and maybe my job."

Given Winnie's belligerence, it was becoming more and more apparent that if she received the promotion to Assistant Chief, it might very well be the end of Major Crimes.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N-As stated, I will_ playing _around with the storylines and will weave in and out of canon which is why you will see some things playing out differently here. I will even be stealing some of a storyline from "The Closer" later. It is fanfic, some of what I will be writing is canon and some is AU._

* * *

"Well, I'm certainly glad today is over." Sharon hung up her coat and kicked off her heels, curling her aching toes. Her head hurt, her feet hurt and her back hurt. She was already pulling her blouse out of her skirt and starting to unbutton it on her way toward the bedroom when she called out over her shoulder to Andy, "I'm going to change into something more comfortable before dinner."

"Sounds good to me." Andy followed her into the bedroom, watching her disappear into the bathroom while he took off his suit coat. He was hanging it in the closet when he heard her muffled "Dammit" from behind the wall.

"Everything okay in there?" He asked at the bathroom door.

"Yes," she grit out, looking at the telltale stain in her panties. Terrific. Just what she needed after a day of dealing with Winnie Davis. No wonder her head and her back had been bothering her. Groping beneath the bathroom sink where she kept her supplies she gave another muffled curse when she came up empty handed, remembering that Emily had left her note apologizing for using the last of her tampons. She'd added a box to her shopping list, but considering she hadn't had a period in two months, the need hadn't exactly felt urgent. In fact, she was rather hoping that she might have seen the last of this monthly mess. Her periods had become more erratic over the last couple years, skipping a month here and there and sometimes arriving twice in the same month, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, all part of the joys of perimenopause her gynecologist assured her, but she'd never skipped two months in a row.

"Uh…No," she amended, opening the bathroom door. "I've got a bit of a problem here. Can I ask you a really big favor?"

"Sure. You okay? "

"Yes, fine. I just started my period and I'm out of tampons. Could you run over to Rite Aid and buy me a box." At the deer in the headlights look he gave her she added, "I hate to ask, but…"

"No, no. It's fine." He pushed aside his initial aversion. While it wouldn't have been his first choice as favors went, Sharon rarely asked him for anything intimate and it actually felt kind of good to have her turn to him in this way. "Kotex, right?" He'd seen the boxes in the vanity plenty of times, going back to when he'd had to move in with her because of his blood clot after they'd just started dating. It was how he'd known that he was still going to need to use protection when they finally made love. Of course, being the efficient woman that she was, Sharon had already taken care of things, having an IUD inserted when it was apparent that their relationship was moving into greater intimacy, leaving him with no need of the condoms he'd purchased.

"Yes. U by Kotex. Make sure you get the Click, the black and purple box. They're easier to carry in my purse." And more discreet.

"Okay, U Kotex Click, black and purple box, I got it." He could do this, even if it wasn't at the grocery store where he could slide them in amongst the milk, bread, and eggs.

* * *

For all his nonchalance with Sharon, Andy stood in the feminine hygiene aisle feeling very much out of place. He'd found the Kotex, no problem, even found the click, but evidently, there was more to it than that.

Provenza and Patrice were making their way to the checkout counter when Patrice asked, "Isn't that Andy?"

Provenza followed the finger she was pointing and indeed saw Andy Flynn standing in the middle of the feminine hygiene aisle, two boxes in his hands and perplexed look on his face.

"Let's go say hello."

Provenza grimaced. The feminine aisle was one he avoided like the plague.

"Oh, come on." Patrice took his arm. "You're a big boy Louie." He huffed a bit but followed his wife.

"I knew you'd been extra moody, lately.

Andy turned to see Provenza regarding him with a raised brow and rolled his eyes. "They're not for me, obviously. They're for Sharon."

"TMI, Flynn, TMI."

Andy shook his head. "You've been married six times, you ought to be used to this stuff by now."

"Never," he shuddered.

Seeing Patrice at Provenza's side he asked, "What are you guys doing in this neck of the woods, anyway?" Los Feliz was 20 minutes away from the Provenza's small bungalow in South LA.

"I was downtown shopping so we decided to grab a pizza at Palermo's for supper," Patrice said. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"God yes. Thank you. Sharon wanted this brand," he showed her the two boxes. "But she didn't tell me which ones. I don't know the difference between the super and the regular."

"Well, that would depend on her flow. Did she just start?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm here. She wasn't expecting it today and she was out of these."

"Well, then, I'd get this combo pack." She grabbed a big box that was half super and half regular. "The supers will be fine for the first couple of days when it's heavier and then the regulars will work for the last few when it's lighter.

"Eh Gads. Really you two? "Provenza looked around to see if anyone was listening, and then hissed softly, "Are we really going to stand here in the middle of a store discussing the Captain's flow. It's embarrassing."

Andy gave a pointed look at the long yellow box in Provenza's hand. "No more embarrassing than buying hemorrhoid suppositories."

Provenza's face flushed. With a little huff, he slid the box of Preparation H under his arm and walked away toward the checkout counter with as much dignity as he could procure, Flynn's laughter following him all the way.

* * *

Rusty was making the salad his mother had asked him to prepare to go with dinner when he heard the door to the condo open and then shut. With a puzzled frown, he stepped around the corner to see Andy.

"I thought I heard you come home earlier? He said.

"I did come home earlier. And then I left."

"Where did you go?"

"I had to run to the drugstore and get these for your Mom. " Andy pulled the box of tampons out of the bag, grinning when the boy's face twisted with distaste.

"Future reference Andy, when I ask a question like that a simple, 'I had to run an errand for your Mom will do it. I don't need to know any of the gross details."

Andy gave a soft chuckle. "Better get used to it, kid. Periods are a part of life, one day you'll have a wife and you'll-" A look of stunned horror crossed his face. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry."

"s'okay"

"No, really. I didn't mean anything by…It slipped…I just…. "

"Andy, it's okay. " Rusty cut off the stumbling explanation, putting the older man out of his misery. "You didn't offend me or anything."

"Okay, good. " Andy let out a breath of relief and started off toward the bathroom, then thought the better of it. Rusty wasn't going to have a wife and given the kid's upbringing, he doubted he'd ever been given a proper talk about this kind of stuff. Certainly, Sharon Beck wouldn't have done it and by the time his Sharon got the boy he'd probably known more about sex, the mechanics anyway, than her so there would have been no need for "the talk". In any case, boys were typically taught about male puberty and how to keep a girl from getting pregnant with barely a reference to anything that girls and women experienced. He'd learned far more about the female side of things from the women in his life than he did from health class or anything his father had told him. "You know kid, it's still a fact of life and even if you don't have a wife you could have a daughter one day. You might want to talk to your mom about that sometime." He looked down at the box in his hand. "Well, I better get these in to her."

Rusty watched Andy disappear into the bathroom. A daughter. He'd never really thought about that before. Did he even want children? Would he be capable of being a good parent? Despite the five years of love and stability he'd had with an amazing mother like Sharon, the 13 horrific years of abuse and neglect that he'd experienced with his biological mother and the two years he'd spent homeless, selling himself on the street had left him so messed up inside he wasn't sure he would ever be healed enough to think that he could be a good parent.

* * *

"I have been patient, Gus. I waited an extra day. O-okay. Well, if you weren't ready to talk to me about it, then why text me? "

Sharon and Andy paused in setting the table with supper both looking to Rusty who was pacing in the living room on the phone with Gus.

"One of the things I love about living in a house with a kid again is realizing how happy I am to be older," Andy said.

" Mm." Sharon agreed, rubbing his shoulder and leaning in to press her lips to his in a brief kiss. "Relationships were so complicated at that age, weren't they? And breaking up is tough. Even if there's no other choice." She was so glad that she and Andy were past the complicated stage in their relationship. Sure, there were still difficulties they were facing with their annulments, but it was no longer complicated. She loved him, she was committed to him and she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. Nothing complicated anymore about that.

They sat at the table filling their plates while Rusty's conversation with Gus continued.

"Okay, I... yeah, right. But just... just know that it's incredibly frustrating and... Yeah, well, I love you, too. Okay. All right, bye."

Sharon smiled at the ' _I love you'_. Rusty had come such a long way with being able to express his feelings, well, feelings that weren't anger anyway. He'd always been pretty good at expressing his anger. She could still remember the first time he'd given voice to his feelings for her. He was standing in the doorway to her office about to leave when he'd said those very words, _"I'm only doing this because I love you. You know that, right?"_ You could have knocked her over with a feather, but she had perfected the art of suppressing her emotions and keeping her face devoid of the surprise she felt at hearing things that shocked her, like those words, and her response was a matter of fact, _"I do"_. But, as soon as her door shut, her eyes had flooded with tears of joy. He loved her.

"Well... that sounded more positive," she said as Rusty joined them at the table.

"He says that he thinks it's all good, but he can only talk to me about whatever it is face to face. What? "Andy was giving him that 'come on' look that he had when someone was being oblivious.

"Nothing, "Andy shrugged. "It's just... well when I think about good things that can only be talked about face to face…"

"You mean like marriage?" Rusty was dumbfounded. He wasn't ready for marriage. "Andy, I'm not even out of college yet. And then, I have law school after that. I can't... Oh, my God. This is gonna end no matter what I do. Either he's preparing some kind of, "It's for the best" way to break up with me. Or he's going to ask me to marry him and then break up with me when I say no. But getting married right now, that would be crazy. Wouldn't it, Mom?"

"It depends on how you really feel about the other person." Sharon was listening to the conversation but her mind suddenly went back to the murder of Allie King. If Allie had turned down the proposal her volatile boyfriend, a billionaire used to getting everything he wanted, would it have been enough for him to snap and kill her?

"So, you think I'm ready to get _married_?"

"What? No. Of course not. I think the two of you are jumping to conclusions. There's no reason to get all worked up about this until you find out what Gus really wants to talk to you about."

* * *

After supper and an episode of "Game of Thrones" Sharon left Andy and Rusty engrossed in a chess match to go soak in a nice bubble bath, hoping the warm water might soothe the war taking place in her abdomen.

When Andy got to the bedroom, having been soundly defeated, Sharon was laying in bed absorbed in book as she was most nights before bed, but by the time he returned from the bathroom having showered and brushed his teeth he found her curled up in the fetal position around a heating pad, her book set aside. There was a mug of herbal tea and a bottle of Midol sitting on her nightstand and the room was filled with the lavender and sage scent of essential oils coming from her diffuser. All that arsenal told him one thing. Sharon was feeling pretty miserable right now.

Because of his addiction, he was unable to take many prescription medications so he was more open than most of the guys he knew when it came to using natural products to fight pain and illness. But even so, he'd still thought all that aromatherapy stuff Sharon got from Summer was just a load of New Age mumbo-jumbo. How could the scent of clary sage soothe the cramps in her uterus? And yet, he had to admit, the lavender she used did seem to make him sleep better. And, when she'd rubbed some peppermint oil into his neck after he'd gotten the pinched nerve it had helped a little bit.

"Cramps bad?" He asked, sliding into bed behind her.

"Mm…you think?" It was nearly a groan. "You know, it isn't fair. If I'm going to have to deal with hot flashes, it would be nice to at least have the benefit of stopping my period. I was hoping after skipping it for two months in a row that it might be done."

Two months? Had it been that long? It wasn't something he'd really thought about, but now that she mentioned it, he realized that it had been a while. The last time he could remember was right around Halloween when he'd woken one morning, a little taken aback, to see sheets stained with small wet patches of blood where Sharon had been laying. Hearing his surprised intake of breath when she'd risen from the bed, Sharon had been slightly embarrassed at the mess, complaining about the unpredictability of her period after a couple decades of it cycling like clockwork. He'd made a flip remark about her sense of occasion with it being Halloween and all which had earned him a withering look and kept him mute on the subject now. But there was something he could do.

"Doesn't seem like your bath helped much. Would you like a back or belly rub?" One or the other had seemed to be helpful in the past. The first day or two was always hard on her, with agonizing cramps and backaches.

"My back feels like it's in a vice grip," she admitted. "The heating pad is helping with my belly."

"Back it is then." He lifted her cami and slid his hand into the back of her boy shorts. It was the only time of the month she wore the comfortable stretchy shorts, preferring to sleep in silky or satin negligees and nightgowns but not willing to take the chance she might stain them.

The moment his strong fingers rubbed into the small of her back, Sharon moaned with relief. Then he placed his thumbs on each side of her spine and dug them in with circling motions the way she'd taught him the first time he'd done this for her.

"You're awfully quiet," he said after several minutes of nothing but appreciative soft moans. "Just in pain or are you really worried about Rusty and this marriage thing?"

"There is no marriage thing. We don't even know what Gus wants to talk to him about." Her strained protest did not fool him.

"So, you're worried."

She sighed. "Maybe a little. It's so easy at that age to be pressured into doing something that you aren't ready for."

"You and I are prime examples of that."

"We are. I don't want Rusty to fall into the same trap that we fell into. But I know I have to be careful about what I say. My parents arguing against me marrying Jack in some ways only pushed me the other way. I wanted to prove to them that they were wrong."

"And my mother urging me to marry Sandra and being so excited about it pushed me right into proposing. I had no idea what I was getting into."

"So, what do we do? "

"We worry about today. Tomorrow will come soon enough and we can deal with it then."

Sharon was a planner, she liked to look ahead, to be prepared, but she had to admit that Andy's take one day at a time AA philosophy was starting to win her over-a little bit anyway. She was always going to worry, always look ahead at the big picture, but if she could step back from that a little she would try. "I guess you're right, I should take my own advice. There's no need in getting all worked up about it until we know what it is that Gus wants to talk to him about. And if it is marriage we just have to offer Rusty the best advice we can and hope that he makes the right decision." At Andy's negative little rumble, she looked back over her shoulder. "What? "

"We're talking about Rusty, here. "

"I know that. He's made some poor decisions, yes, but he's gotten a lot better. Look at him now. He's in college, he has goals, he's interning with the hopes of going to law school. He-" She paused at the grin crossing Andy's face. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just so easy to get your Mama Bear hackles up. Anyone who even thinks about fucking with one of your children better watch out."

"Hmph. "She flipped back over. "You might want to remind Gus about that."

"I thought you liked Gus."

"I do like Gus. He's been good for Rusty."

"But…"

"But I don't know what all of this is about and he's Rusty's first love. He has the power to hurt him. You know, I watched Emily and Ricky go through this with their boyfriends and girlfriends and when their hearts were broken, my heart broke too. But, it feels different with Rusty. I know it seems like he's tougher than they are and in some ways, he is. He's certainly been through things they can't even imagine. But emotionally, he's so much more fragile than they ever were."

"Old or new, love always has the power hurt you, Sharon. Just look how long it took me to even ask you out on a date."

"Hmm…" she hummed, tapping his hand to keep him kneading on her back. That night at the candlelit table at Serve he'd taken her hand and, playing with her fingers, told her just how long he'd had feelings for her. How many times he'd wanted to ask her out on a real date, a romantic date, and yet he'd held back, fearing rejection, fearing the loss of something he wasn't even sure was real. Until he asked her out, he could believe that she had the same romantic feelings and sexual attraction for him that he had for her. But if he asked her out and she said no, that she wasn't interested in him that way, he would know for sure that his feelings were not reciprocated and that he'd read her completely wrong. The fear that he'd been living in a fantasyland and they would never be more than just friends had been very potent, but he had to do it. He had to man up, take a chance and fight for what he wanted.

"It sucks, but as much as we want to, we can't stop our kids from getting hurt. "

"I know," she frowned. "All we can do is be there to pick up the pieces." She grabbed the heating pad's control box and clicked on the two-hour timer. As tempting as it was to sleep curled around all that heat warding off the squeezing, gripping pain that radiated down her thighs and made her insides feel like they were going through a meat grinder, it was too dangerous to keep it on all night. "I'm going to try to get some sleep before the Midol wears off and the heating pad shuts down."

"Okay. " Andy nuzzled into her hair pressing a kiss to her temple. "Good-night, sweetheart." And he continued to rub her back until she fell asleep.

* * *

"So, do you remember her from your PSB days?"

Sharon looked down at the picture of a sour-faced older woman that she held in her hand. This was their newest victim, unrelated to the Allie King murder they were still working on. Mary Conrad, a former member of the LAPD. As if she could forget that nasty piece of work.

"Oh yes, I remember her very well." She glanced up at Provenza who seemed strangely ill at ease, shifting from one foot to the other. "You know Lieutenant," she leaned in whispering softly. "You can't catch it, it's not contagious." She bit back an amused smile at the deep red flush of mortification rushing into his face.

"Yes, well, I know that," he stammered. He couldn't help it. It felt strange knowing something so personal about the Captain. And he wouldn't have known about it if it weren't for…Flynn. His eyes moved to his second in command who was leaning casually back against a desk with a knowing smile. "Your boyfriend has a big mouth."

Sharon's smile broadened. "Yes, well…"She trailed off and began putting pictures of Mary on the murder board as the rest of team began filtering in.

Provenza couldn't have been more relieved to see them and took the opportunity to slide away to his desk trying not to think about what else Flynn had told her about that visit to the drugstore.

"As you all know our victim, Mary Conrad, was a veteran of the LAPD. I had a few run-ins with Mary at the PSB. In fact, Mary took a swing at me when I relieved her from duty." She slapped the last picture on the murder board.

"Why were you investigating her ma'am?" Julio asked.

"Well, when she'd make an arrest for fraud, Mary sometimes accepted 'thank you' gifts from banks and retail outlets.

"Oh my God, that's so against the rules."

Buzz, a man after her own heart. "Yeah, well that didn't keep her from trying to justify it. She even mentioned that FBI agents get to keep a percentage of confiscated funds."

"Lucky bastards," Provenza muttered. Mary had been in his class at the Academy and he was still trying to remember who she was. Kind of scary considering that in the late 70's there were barely a handful of women at the Academy. She should have stuck out like a sore thumb.

"But you know, Mary's main defense was that her Captain didn't like having a woman in his unit."

"Well, it was a bit of a boys club back then," Andy said, as if she needed reminding.

"Still is," she reminded him right back. "But I'm not sure though how much of a committed feminist Mary was. When I asked for her service weapon back she called me a bitch."

"Oh, well, that's shocking."

Andy shook his head with a little grin at Provenza's quip. Except for Amy and Wes who had joined the division after Sharon had become their Captain and had little knowledge of her time in FID, they had all referred to her as a bitch at one time or another.

"You canned her right?" Provenza asked.

"No, I offered her a demotion and a chance to work her way back up but she retired instead."

"Well, well, well, there's the happy couple. Sharon, Andy, how does it feel to be engaged?"

Too stunned to move, Sharon's eyes met Andy's and they stood rooted on the spot as Jack blustered into the Murder Room with a big smile. It was the smile of a snake, ready to lash out with his poison venom.

The team was also shocked speechless, but it didn't take them long to regain their wits.

"Wait, what?"

"Congratulations."

"Where's the ring?" Julio asked. "Didn't the Lieutenant buy you a ring, ma'am."

"Oh my God," Andy shook his head.

Provenza only nodded knowingly. Tao was going to have to give him his five bucks back.

"Ohh… wait. You aren't wearing a ring, are you? Well, that had to be the shortest engagement ever." Jack shook his head with mock sorrow resting a pitying hand on Andy's shoulder. "Bad luck Andy, my old man. Sorry about that. Women can be so fickle. You shell out the big bucks on a vacation, bare your soul asking them to marry you, they get caught up in the moment and say yes and then they kick you in the balls and give you your ring back."

"What the hell are you even talking about?" Andy shoved Jack's hand from his shoulder and Sharon moved in closer to the two, sliding an arm around Andy's waist. She could nearly taste the testosterone that was flying around between the two men and knew this could easily get out of hand.

"Wait, are you two really engaged or not?" Amy asked.

Sharon turned to her team…her family. This wasn't how she had wanted to tell them. Leave it to Jack to mess everything up. "Yes, we are." She rested her head on Andy's shoulder in a quick moment of affection she rarely displayed at work, the wide, happy smile on her face easing the tension in Andy and in the room.

"We just haven't announced it yet," Andy said.

"Oh no, "Jack feigned dismay, the brief flare of hope at seeing her bare finger extinguished. "Oh, God. I ruined your surprise."

Sharon's eyes, turning hard as granite, settled back on her ex-husband. "Yes, you did," she said before turning her back on him to talk to her friends. "We were going to have a little party to make the announcement. And yes Andy did, of course, give me a ring but I left it home because we wanted to tell acting Assistant Chief Howard first."

"Oh, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. You never change. Always following the rules."

Sharon's glare came back in full force as she whipped around snapping, "What are you even doing here, Jack?" As far as she knew, he wasn't representing anyone in their cases.

"I uh…Brought the paperwork. The annulment questionnaire."

"I asked you to mail it to me."

"The mail is so impersonal."

"Exactly."

Man, she was a tough nut to crack. that wasn't anything new. He'd told her once that she was his Mount Everest, his Waterloo. She'd made the decision 22 years ago to make their separation legal and at that time she'd put a wall up that he'd never been able to completely penetrate ever again. Oh, he'd tried storming the castle a few times, even tore away a brick or two on occasion but he'd never been able to infiltrate the barriers and rules she'd put in place to keep him at bay. She was strong and she was stubborn and standing there ramrod straight with her arms crossed under her breasts and her cheeks slightly flushed with anger, she was as sexy a woman as he'd ever known. God how he still wanted her. He always wanted her, though never more so, it seemed, than when she was out of his reach. And never had she been more out of his reach than she was now with Flynn standing at her side and the talk of marriage on everyone's lips. "Is that really what you, the queen of the face to face, wants?"

What she really wanted right now was for the floor to open and Jack to fall through to hell, but that wasn't likely to happen. "Fine, you want to talk? Go wait for me in my office. I need to finish up here and then you'll have," she consulted her watch, "you'll have about five minutes."

"You're a tough lady to bargain with," he tried his most charming grin. When it did nothing to change her steely demeanor, he sighed and made his way toward her office. He hated it when she played these power games. Sending him off to wait in her office was all about showing him who was the boss.

And Sharon was always the boss.

* * *

Sharon made him cool his heels for a good twenty minutes before finally joining him in her office.

"You printed this out awfully fast." Jack held up a framed picture she had on her desk. Her mother had taken it Christmas Eve after they'd told the family about their engagement. She and Andy were standing in front of a blazing fireplace and a large Christmas tree twinkling with white lights, surrounded by their smiling children. Their arms were wrapped around each other's waists and her dress, the color of cranberries matched his suspenders. They were radiating happiness.

Sharon took the picture from him and set it back down on her desk. "Why did you come here, Jack?"

"Okay, so that's how it's going to be." He started to pull out the chair in front of her desk.

"Don't bother sitting, you won't be here long."

"Seriously? You throw something like this at me and don't expect to have a conversation about it?"

"Not here I don't. If you'd really wanted to have a conversation about this, we could have met for coffee somewhere and discussed it. But that isn't what you wanted. You knew Andy and I are planning an engagement party to surprise our friends and you just couldn't wait to let the cat out of the bag. Using our children as spies is starting to get a little tiresome and if they knew what you were doing… _My God_ ," she shook her head with disgust.

More than once the kids had innocently given Jack information about her or Andy that he'd then used against them. She hadn't told Emily or Ricky about it because it would only hurt them. Jack was so good at manipulation he had them believing that he was only interested in their lives, while surreptitiously pumping them for information on her and Andy.

"I'm here because of _this_." He angrily tossed the manila folder on her desk. "An annulment. You know this negates our marriage."

"Our marriage was already negated. "

"No, a divorce means our marriage is over, an annulment means our marriage never existed."

"Our sacramental marriage never existed-and that's the truth. That was the marriage where you promised before God to love and cherish me all the days of our lives, the one when you placed a ring on my finger and promised to be faithful to me. Jack, you negated our wedding vows a long, long time ago. This just makes it official."

"You can't pretend it didn't happen, Sharon!"

"I'm not pretending anything. Legally we were married and it's over, but when it comes to the sacrament of marriage, it didn't happen. I made a mistake and I'm putting it behind me. It would be better for you if you did the same."

Jack looked like she'd slapped him in the face. "Is that how you see me, as a mistake?"

"Jack…" Her tone softened. "You know I will always be grateful to you for Emily and for Ricky. I will always care about you and wish the best for you, even when you piss me off and I want to ring your neck as I do most of the time lately. But even though I didn't officially end it until two years ago, we haven't been married, _really married_ for twenty-five years. And let's face it; if we hadn't rushed into getting married that summer we graduated, we would have realized that even if we loved each other, it wasn't going to work between us. We just weren't compatible. We wanted different things out of life. " She wanted a partner, family, stability, and monogamy, none of which he'd been able to give her. "I wasn't able to see that for a long time and maybe I was willing to overlook too much. You were my first serious relationship. Now that I've been with Andy and experienced that level of love, respect, and commitment, I can see what we were missing. "

"Andy," he scoffed. "You're seriously going to marry him?"

"I wouldn't go through this if I wasn't serious about marrying Andy. I'm not looking forward to reliving all of the most painful, humiliating parts of my life."

He flinched knowing she was referring to her time with him, but as usual, his pain came out as anger. "But you'll go through that for _him_."

"For _us_ ," she stressed. "I want to start our marriage out on the right foot and for me, that means getting married in the church."

"I gotta ask, why Flynn?"

"I'm not sure you really want me to answer that." She was still angry for what he'd just done, still angry for how he'd treated their children when they'd gone to him, but that didn't mean she wanted to hurt him.

"Yes, Sharon, I do. "

She stared at him for a long moment trying to decide if he was sincere or just trying to goad her into a fight, wondering how she could convey what she had with Andy in a way that he would understand. What could she tell him of a love that had sprung seemingly out of nowhere; coming at a time in her life when she'd least expected it. A love that had started with a deep friendship, her feelings growing and deepening every day until they became so powerful she could no longer imagine her life without Andy in it.

"Come on Sharon," he pushed. "You said you overlooked too much with me, but it seems to me that you must be overlooking an awful lot when it comes to that skirt chaser."

Her eyes hardened, whatever compassion she'd had for him disappearing. "Okay," she snapped. "You want to know, why Andy? Because he makes me happier than I've ever been in my whole life. Because he respects me and he loves me in a way that I've never been loved before and because I love him in a way that I've never loved anyone before. " As she spoke of Andy, she could actually feel that love, the warmth flowing from her heart all the way into her bones, melting the anger she felt toward her ex. It was a feeling she couldn't explain.

"He's a drunk you know," Jack spat out derisively. "Just like me. You just went from one drunk to another."

"He's an alcoholic," Sharon corrected, trying to keep her temper in check, something that was never easy when it came to Jack. "A recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 20 years, made amends and repaired his relationships with those he loves. So, no, he's not like you at all."

"Really? How is he moving in and living off you any different from what I did? Sounds to me like he's as much a deadbeat as you once accused me of being. "

Sharon's mouth dropped open with shock. Now that was rich, coming from the king of the freeloaders. She didn't owe Jack of all people any explanations but she also could not allow him to besmirch Andy this way. "Not that it's any of your business, but unlike you, Andy does not, nor has he ever 'lived off me'. He moved into my, now our condo because we are looking to buy a house and his house, the one that he bought himself and paid the mortgage on himself, again, something you've never done, sold faster than he thought it would and we haven't found a house yet. And unlike you who never gave me a dime of child support or sent any money home to help with the mortgage, bills, ballet classes, swim meet fees, football camps and baseball clinics, never mind college, he pays half the mortgage, half the utilities, and half the condo fees. He also paid child support when his daughter was younger, helped her with college tuition, and pretty much footed the entire $30,000 bill for her wedding so let's remember who the deadbeat is because it sure isn't Andy."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot what a paragon he is. Saint Andy. Good luck with that, I think you're gonna need it." He stalked off toward the door

"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Oh, and Jack-" she stopped him just as he touched the door handle. "He may not be a saint but you want to know what else is different between you and Andy? When he moved in last August, it was into my bedroom, not the couch."

Jack's face flushed, his blood boiling with anger and jealousy. He wanted to walk out that door and punch Andy Fucking Flynn right in the face. Instead, he hit Sharon where he knew it would hurt her most. "Yeah, the kids told me all about it."

In an instant, Sharon went from chastising herself for allowing him to taunt her into pettiness to seething with outrage. Only this time she kept it under control calmly asking, "Will I be seeing you at the tribunal?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"You know, Jack, I really don't want to fight with you. I'd like this to be as civilized as possible.

"I'm sure that's exactly what you'd like, Sharon." He tossed her an enigmatic look and walked out the door.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N I know it seems like I dropped off the face of the earth. Sorry this one took so long. I was working really hard on the mid-term elections and then just when I thought I could concentrate on my fic, I got sick. Hopefully, I will do better with upcoming chapters._

* * *

Andrea was watching the Jeffery Day interview with skepticism. "And we're back to neither guy having an alibi. My boss won't move forward on a case like this without a lot more."

"To me, either Jeffrey Day did it, or he paid to have it done," Andy countered.

"What do you have to hold him on?" Andrea shot back. "Not one thing. "

Sharon felt a rush of irritation, the intensity of which surprised her. It wasn't as if what she was watching was new. Day was hardly original. She'd spent years dealing with men like him. Men who thought the world revolved around them and the rules didn't apply to them. Men whose sense of entitlement was so ingrained that when things didn't go the way they planned or wanted they completely lost control of themselves. So why was she rising from the table, heading for the door stating, "I think we can fix that. Buzz, Interview Two. "And why was she striding off toward the interview room almost spoiling for a fight? Some might say it was residual anger over her confrontation with Jack, others the cramps grinding in a dull ache in her belly that had her on edge,and others still, the empathy she had for a young woman who had made such poor choices in the men in her life. They'd all be right. But most of all she'd simply had enough of the arrogance and conceit in a certain population of men who thought they were God's gift to the world.

There were only two things that she was sure of right now. One, that Jeffrey Day killed Allie King and, two, that she was not going to let him off the hook for it. Sadly, she knew all too well, what it was like to face the belligerence and bullying of a man who wasn't getting what he wanted from her. Jeffrey Day had of course taken that rage to a level Jack never had, but what did it take to get to that level? What did it take to make the jump from rage to violence to murder?

She was about to find out.

Pushing the door open to the interview room, she cut off the interrogation. "Okay, forget everything we've discussed so far. Mr. Day. Let me ask you a question. After all the gifts you gave her, after all the trips to Paris, Hawaii, New York, even linking your phones so that she could keep tabs on your wonderful life, Allie King had the nerve to turn down your marriage proposal, didn't she?"

"We found the $600,000 charge at Harry Winston's," Julio added.

"Ring like that... burns a hole in your pocket, doesn't it? You just needed a special place to ask for her hand."

"Like a house in the Hollywood Hills, dinner at L'Etude after." Sharon could tell from the look Day gave her that she was on to something.

"Yeah, but you missed your 9 p.m. reservations. Of course, by then, Allie had already been dead for hours."

"Her body stiffening in the front trunk of your Tesla, developing indentations in her arm from your hood."

Sharon placed her hands on the table, leaning forward to invade Day's space in an intimidating way she knew he would not like. "You knew how she was dressed, not Clark, and you made the whole thing up about her wearing the blue coat so that you could place it in Trent's closet. "

"Hold on a minute. Shut up about the coat, okay? The coat, the coat! What does that asshole Trent have to do with any of this?"

And there it was. _"Saint Andy'_. Less than an hour ago her ex had been in her office, his face contorted with jealousy, words dripping with venom, all because she'd walked away from him and was marrying another man. Jealousy was a powerful motive, one that was often the cause of the most violent actions, assault, rape, murder. Now it was going to get her exactly what she wanted. "Because after seeing you up close, Allie preferred her ex."

"You popped the question, and Allie said no. She was leaving to make up with Trent Myers, is that it? Julio asked.

"And then she thrust the very expensive blue coat back into your hands and said she didn't want it."

Day slammed his hands on the desk and jumped to his feet.

"Oh! Captain," Provenza exclaimed. "I think you hit a nerve."

"Yeah, and I'm gonna hit back, too. You can expect to hear from my lawyers. Now get out of my way. "

"You're not going anywhere. Sit down." Day made a move toward Sharon and Julio and Provenza were on their feet behind her in an instant.

"It's okay," Sharon gestured them to stand down, then turned her attention back to Day. She was way under his skin, it wasn't going to take much more to get him to explode. "You can dish it out, but you can't take it, can you?" Her tone oozed disdain. "Being told what to do, being told you're not getting what you want. "

Back in the viewing room, Rusty watched the interview with growing trepidation. "I don't like the way he's standing next to Mom. Is it always like this?"

Andy turned from the monitor to see Rusty's face was pale, his eyes wide with worry. He rested a reassuring hand on the boy's arm to calm him, but he felt anything but calm. He'd watched thousands of these kinds of interrogations, had seen Sharon sitting across the table from some of the most violent, hardened murderers in LA with only a table between them. He'd watched her goad suspects and witnesses into spilling information they'd not intended to share, but even he was getting itchy watching this interview. He'd feel a hell of a lot better if it was he in the room with her, sitting at the table with Julio rather than Provenza. Something was going to happen, he could feel it, every instinct he had as a cop screamed it.

"Strikes me as an entitled kind of guy, Captain."

"He's used to everyone giving him whatever he wants."

"What was it like when you proposed?" Sharon asked. "Did you drop down to one knee so certain, so confident... "

"Oh, shut up," he whispered under breath.

"So confident that the word "yes" was just, a what? A formality? "

"Shut... shut your fat mouth!" He shouted aggressively into Sharon's face. She was definitely hitting a nerve.

"Oh. Hey, hey, Mr. Money Bags, when you found the access gate to the L.A. River, you left paint flecks from your Tesla. What do you wanna bet we can match it up to your car?"

"That Tesla is filled with DNA, proving that Allie dumped you, so you dumped her back." Provenza upped the intensity in an effort to push Day over the edge.

"And he kept her keys so he could get into her ex-boyfriend's house where you put the Burberry coat"

"The Burberry coat that you oh-so-clearly described so when we found it in her ex's closet, hoping we would arrest Trent and nobody would know that Allie King had dumped you flat." Day began to pace exhaling deeply, a powder keg about to burst. Then Sharon lit the spark. "That all your money and your power and your position can't make up for the self-entitled, conceited little... Oh!"

The blow connected with Sharon's cheek, her whole head exploding with pain and for an instant, everything went dark and she saw stars. Someone's arms went around her… Provenza, then all hell broke loose, Julio was on top of Day in an instant and the stars cleared just in time for Sharon to put her glasses back on and see Andy come bursting through the door. He gave her a quick glance to make sure she was okay before lifting Day off the floor where Julio had him pinned and slamming him into the wall his arm going back, hand balled into a fist.

"No, Andy. No, no, no. Let him go." Sharon was surprised she could speak. For a panicked moment, she thought he might have broken her jaw."

If he hadn't been so consumed by fury, Andy would have known that she had purposely goaded Day into attacking her and why, but as it was, only the urgency in her command caused him to pause mid-punch. It took every ounce of self-control that he had not to reap the satisfaction of pounding his fist into the ugly, fucking dirt bag's face. Instead, he grabbed him by the throat, looking him right in the eye. "You try anything like that again, and I will personally beat you to a pulp," he seethed.

"And just like my lawyers will beat your lawyers. Assholes." Still the rich boy thinking he could buy his way out of anything.

"Your lawyers might see this differently when they look at this video. Anyway, you're under arrest." Still trying to catch her breath, Sharon left the interview room to question Andrea, Andy close behind her. She didn't have to go far; both Andrea and Rusty were right outside the door in the hallway

"Mom, are you okay?" Rusty asked anxiously, his wide eyes conveying his shock. Though it wasn't the first time he'd seen a woman punched in the face, his biological mother had been beaten many times by the violent men she brought into their lives, he'd never seen anyone even come close to attacking Sharon before.

Sharon nodded and put up a finger. "Oh, one second." Her attention turned to Andrea. "So, Andrea, assault on a police officer... that gives you enough to hold him while we make a deal, correct?"

Rusty couldn't stop looking at the red mark on the side of her face.

"If the Tesla turns out to be what you guys think it is."

Sharon nodded. "It's okay," she said to Rusty.

"Yeah, and now we're getting her some ice. Okay. Excuse us." Andy put his arm around Sharon's waist and led her away toward the break room.

"Oh, Hobbs. How much trouble could I get into if I short the stock from Jeffrey Day's company? I've got a hunch it's about to dip," Provenza said with glee.

"I didn't hear that, Lieutenant."

Rusty continued to watch Andy leading Sharon away, still bewildered by the realization that his mother had gone into that room with the purpose of getting a volatile killer to punch her just so they could keep him locked up while continuing to build their case against him. "Wow, "he said with stunned admiration to no one in particular. "My Mom's a badass."

Sharon's cheek was throbbing and she still wasn't sure Day hadn't done some real damage to her jaw, there were shooting pains going from her jaw into her ear.

Once in the break room, Andy pulled out a chair at one of the tables. "Sit." He ordered. She did so, gently pressing her fingers into the side of her face, assessing the damage while he went to the freezer for an ice pack.

"I forgot how much it hurts to get punched," she said. Though, truth told, while several had tried; only two had made their mark until today.

"Mmm…" Andy had been punched enough times to know exactly how she was feeling. "I wish I had a steak, that would be better, but this will have to do. " He handed her an ice pack urging her to keep it on her cheek then began rooting through their First Aid kit.

"What are you looking for?" she asked. Damn it hurt to talk.

"These." He opened a small packet of ibuprofen. "Believe me, I speak from experience. You're going to need a couple of these." He poured her a glass of water, handed her the two pills then sat down beside her. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Her brow lifted at his tone. "I was thinking that I had a dangerous murderer in my interview room and I was going to have to let him go due to lack of evidence if I didn't come up with a way to keep him locked up."

"So you decided to get him to punch you in the face?"

"Well, to be honest, I was hoping for a shove, but the punch did the trick." She popped the pills and took a long swallow from the bottle of water; her tongue running over her teeth to make sure none was loose.

"You could have really been hurt."

"Pfftt, "she scoffed. "I'm a cop, Andy. I was in an interview room surrounded by cops, being watched by cops- including you. I was never in any real danger. Besides it's not like you haven't done the same thing."

"Getting a woman to slap me is not the same as you getting a man capable of being angry enough to murder someone to punch you."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is it different?"

"Because…" The hard look she cast his way caused him to pause, then stammer, "Because, well…Because you're-"

"Don't you dare say it," she warned.

"Say what?"

"That I'm a woman."

"Look in the mirror, sweetheart, you are a woman. "

She shook her head at his little smirk.

"You are. Look, I know you can take care of yourself. You have great intuition, nerves of steel, you're a crackerjack shot and I'd trust you to have my back any day but seeing you get hit…Shit. "He shook his head as if to clear himself of the vision. "You can call me sexist, misogynistic, whatever fancy way you want to say it, but it's different when it's you, or Sykes, it just is."

"Andy-"

"No. _It is_ Sharon. As a guy, you grow up being taught never to hit a girl. You're told it's your job to protect the women in your life, you can't just shut that off. Besides, you aren't just any woman."

"No?" She smiled, wincing with the pain just that little quirk of the lips caused.

"No. You're the woman I love and I'm always going to want to protect you. I can't change that."

"I don't want you to shut it off or change it. The need to protect is an admirable one. It's the reason most of us are in law enforcement. I just need you to know that I can take care of myself."

"I do know that. Up here." He tapped his head. "It's here that I have a problem." His hand moved to his chest, over his heart."

She nodded with understanding. They'd both known from the beginning that this would be the hardest part of being in love and working together. "I do appreciate that you showed restraint when I asked you not to hit him."

"Ordered me not to hit him. And it wasn't easy." His admission came with a look of chagrin that put her in mind of a little boy confessing. "I can't tell you how much I wanted to plant my fist in the middle of that dirt bag's face."

"I know. But you didn't. That's progress." Andy wasn't well known for always following orders.

"I made you a promise. That night at Serve on our first date, I promised you I would do my best to keep our personal relationship from interfering with our professional one and that you would be the boss at work and I would respect that. Do you remember? "

"Of course I do. I never forget the rules that I put in place." The saucy little quip drew a sarcastic little smile and shake of the head from Andy.

"Well, I do respect that. I was obeying my commanding officer. But I'll tell you what. If that had happened outside of work you can be damn sure that guy wouldn't be capable of speaking or walking right now." He removed the bag examining her cheek with a little grimace. "You're going to have a good bruise here; you might even get a shiner out of this."

"Great. At least he didn't break my glasses or my teeth."

"Someone in here with an injury?"

"You called the paramedics?" Sharon's look of relief turned to one of exasperation.

He shrugged. "It wasn't me." Technically that was true, he'd just asked Julio to call before following her out of the interview room. "You can't mess around with head injuries, you could have a concussion."

"Oh for God's sake, I don't have a concussion."

"You don't know that you're not a doctor."

"He's right ma'am. We'll just put you through a quick concussion protocol."

Sharon raised her eyes to the heavens asking God for patience, but even that hurt.

* * *

"It's a shame you had to get sucker punched, but great work, Captain." Sitting across from Sharon in her office, Fritz watched the action in the interview room one more time before shutting the laptop. Sharon gave a slight shrug and a good-humored roll of her eyes, reflecting 'all in a days work. "Tesla's coming through for us. And apparently, Mr. Day really doesn't want any of his exes revealing what's in those NDAs."

"Of course not. There could be a pattern mitigating claims that his attack on Allie King was a one-time-only crime of passion."

"Hobbs says he'll settle on Murder Two with a parole date in 20 years. And also, thank you for getting your team out here for the written part of the active shooter test. Calms down, uh, you-know-who."

"I've been thinking about this a lot, Chief. And when it comes to Winnie Davis…" She lowered her voice and glanced around as if Winnie could be anywhere. "Watch... your... Back."

"You may need to watch yours a little, too. I hate to bring it up. But there's evidence that Phillip Stroh may have returned to the country. The report's from Pennsylvania. Connection is thin, but I didn't feel right holding it back." Sharon's stomach fell, his words hitting her like a punch to the gut, far worse than the physical pain she'd experienced from the actual punch to her face.

She swallowed tightly in an effort to keep control of her emotions and took the file he handed her. "The past is never really over, is it?" She asked, wistfully. First Jack, now this.

"No, it isn't." He started to rise and Sharon noticed Andy pacing outside her window. She'd almost forgotten. "Uh, Chief before you go, there's one more thing I need to talk to you about. Well, that Andy and I need to talk to you about."

"Is there a problem, Captain? "

"Not a problem." She opened the door urging Andy in.

"She did great, didn't she?" Andy entered the room beaming with pride. "Could have won an Academy Award."

Fritz's lips twitched with amusement. Sometimes it was still hard to believe that this Andy Flynn was the same sardonic smart ass he'd first met a little over a decade ago. As much as he loved his wife, it was eye-opening to see how the Major Crimes team had changed and grown under the leadership of Sharon. "Yes, it was a great performance. I was just commending her on a job well done."

Sharon flushed. She was good at giving compliments, not so good at accepting them. "Yes, well, don't give me too much credit; given his issues with women it was pretty easy to get him to lose control."

"Mmm.." Fritz's eyes narrowed with confusion as Sharon began rooting around in her pocketbook. "So," he prodded, "What can I do for you both?"

"Uh, nothing really. We just wanted to inform you of something. As our superior officer. You know?"

"Okay…" Fritz had no idea what Andy was talking about but he had the strangest shit-eating grin on his face and he looked like a kid with a secret he was bursting to tell.

"I've been waiting to wear this until we could tell you, like Andy said, as our superior officer." Sharon took something out of a box, slid it on her finger then flashed a diamond ring at Fritz with a big smile. "We're engaged."

"Engaged?"

"Getting married," she added when it looked like Fritz was having a hard time comprehending the word engaged.

"Married? Yes. Of course. Oh…Uh…Well…That's a surprise. Well, not really. I mean, it's not such a huge shock, you are living together and…"

"Uh, Chief?" Andy reined him in. "You're starting to sound like your wife, rambling on like that."

Fritz gave a self- deprecating laugh. "I am, aren't I? What I mean to say is, congratulations." He hugged Sharon, and then shared a firm handshake and a pat on the shoulder with Andy. "Do you have a date yet?"

"No, we're still working that out. We're hoping for the fall but we have a few things to work out with the Church first.

"Well, I'm really happy for you both. I can't see any reason why anyone would have a problem with you being married. You seem to handle the stress of being a couple and working together fine as far as I can see." Far better, in fact than the times he'd worked with Brenda when she still ran Major Crimes.

"No, we don't anticipate there being any changes," Sharon assured him. "We work very hard to separate home and work as best as we can."

"Of course. But I know that isn't easy." Watching a loved one walk into a dangerous situation was pure torture. He'd only been through it a couple times with Brenda and it was terrifying. He wasn't sure how Sharon and Andy did it on a continual basis.

"Once we know a little more with the church we'll be sending a "Save the Date" out. We hope you and Brenda will be able to make it." Fritz smiled at the questioning lift to the end of Sharon's statement. As if she wasn't quite sure Brenda would be interested. All perfectly valid. His wife was not the kind of woman who enjoyed going to weddings or got sentimental about them. He'd pretty much planned their tiny ceremony himself and had counted himself lucky that she'd actually shown up. But Andy, fly by his pants Flynn, marrying Sharon, by the books, Raydor was a wedding he knew she would not miss for the world.

"We'll be there Captain. Wouldn't miss it. "

* * *

"I'm getting hungry, what do you want to do for dinner?" Sharon asked while she walked with Andy to their car in the PAB garage. Andy glanced at his watch.

"It's getting late and the Kings are playing the Sharks tonight. You want to head over to Fat Dragon, pick up some takeout then kick back and watch the game?"

"Sounds good to me. I really don't feel like cooking and there's something I need to talk to you about anyway. You want the usual?"

"Yeah. Make sure you get some of those mushroom fries you ordered the last time."

"I will." She settled into the passenger seat, clicked on her seat belt and dialed the restaurant. "Yes, hi, I'd like to place an order to pick up…I'd like an order of your mushroom fries, one order of Szechuan spicy wontons, one eggplant with garlic sauce, one honey walnut shrimp, one orange chicken and an order of dragon noodles…You can put it under Flynn…Thank you." She clicked off the call just as Andy pulled out onto West 1st street and headed toward Silver Lake.

"Flynn, huh?" He cast her a sidelong look.

"I better get used to it."

"So you've made a decision?" The little lift of excitement told her all she needed to know about how he felt.

"Professionally, no."

"Oh, okay." He tried to hide his disappointment but his fading smile and the way his shoulders slumped gave him away, filling Sharon with tenderness. He was trying so hard not to pressure her but she knew how much he wanted her to take his last name.

"Professionally I haven't made up my mind, but personally, legally, I will be Sharon Flynn."

"Really?"

"Andy! Keep your eyes on the road!"

"Oh, shit! Sorry." He got the car back aligned in the lane then turned to her with a beaming smile. "I'm just, well," he took the hand she rested on his thigh and brought it up to his lips for a quick kiss. "I'm happy."

"I know you are. I am too. It just feels right. But I'm still trying to decide what to do about work."

"You'll figure it out. And I'll support you whatever you decide."

* * *

"Why don't you go ahead and turn the game on. I'll put the cartons in the oven to stay warm while we change." Sharon took the bag of Chinese food from Andy, set it down on the kitchen counter and began taking the cartons out. She peeked into each one trying to find the orange chicken that she'd ordered for Rusty. Once she found it, she put it in the fridge because she had no idea what time he was coming home. After getting off his internship, he'd gone to meet up with Gus and find out what it was that Gus wanted to talk to him about so badly. Once the food was stashed away, she turned the oven on low and put the other cartons in.

From the living room, she heard Bob Miller, the LA Kings play-by-play announcer. "We're in the first intermission," Andy said when she joined him. "Kings are up by one."

"Great, we didn't miss too much." Quickly they shed their work clothes, Sharon for a pair of skinny jeans, a stretchy tank top she wore braless and her favorite oversized gray cashmere cardigan. Andy also chose a pair of jeans but his were faded and worn and he paired them with a white t-shirt and a soft blue chambray shirt he left unbuttoned. Then, while Sharon exchanged her peep-toed stilettos for her favorite comfy uggs, Andy slipped his feet into Sherpa lined moccasin slippers.

"You know the kid's gonna to have a field day with this." Andy stood with his hands on his hips surveying their cartons, plates, and drinks on the coffee table.

"When he starts paying the mortgage he can break the rules about not eating on the couch all he wants." Rusty still sometimes bristled under Sharon's firm rule about meals being eaten in the dining room or at the kitchen bar. So, when she broke her own rule, setting pizza boxes or subs on the coffee table, usually during sporting events he was known to throw the word "hypocrite" around. "Oh my God, those smell delicious." She watched Andy opening the carton of mushroom fries and before she could grab one with her chopsticks, he lifted one out and held it up to her. She opened her mouth and he slid it in. She bit off half, closing her eyes and savoring the light crunchy coating and the subtle taste of Szechuan spices combined with earthy mushroom. She gave a soft moan offering a husky, "Delicious." When she opened her eyes Andy was staring at her, half a mushroom fry still in his hand and a glint in his deep brown eyes she knew all too well. "Andy?"

"You keep eating like that and we're not going to make it to the end of the game," he said with a cant of his head toward the bedroom.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen. " He raised a questioning brow and she added, "Think about it."

"Oh, uh, yeah," he popped a mushroom fry in his mouth, pretending to mull it over. "Well, you know that's not exactly a deal breaker for me."

Sharon's nose wrinkled with distaste. "And you know it is for me," she shuddered with a grimace. "Too messy." Not to mention it was not a time of the month she felt particularly sexy.

He shrugged and started doling out the food onto their plates. "If you say so. "

"I do say so." She took her plate from him and used her chopsticks to bring a spicy wonton to her mouth. "Mmm," she groaned. This time it wasn't a sensual response, it was an indication of pain.

"You okay?"

"Yes. My jaw finally stopped throbbing so I actually forgot about it until I just opened my mouth that wide."

"It's going to be sore for a while. After you eat you should put some more ice on it before bed."

"Mmmm…." she accepted a small bite of the honey walnut shrimp from his chopsticks and carefully chewed on her uninjured side. "At least I don't have the shooting pains into my ear anymore. I can't believe you actually had Julio call the paramedics."

"I can't believe he ratted me out."

"Darth Raydor glare still works on him." She started to offer him a bite of tangy garlic eggplant from her chopsticks but her attention was diverted by the growing excitement of the hockey announcers. "GOAL!" She jumped with excitement.

"Sharon!"

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry. " She glanced down to see the sauce covered eggplant she'd been intending to feed Andy in his lap. To be precise, right on his groin. She couldn't help but start to giggle as she grabbed her napkin and tried to clean the mess.

"Sharon." He stopped her from rubbing at him. "You aren't helping matters. Joltin'' Joe can't tell the difference between cleaning up and a hand job."

"Oh…. "She giggled even harder. "Yeah, sorry."

He got up and went to the kitchen to clean the spot, then rejoined her on the couch where they settled back and enjoyed their dinner and the game. Once they had finished and the Kings were in their second intermission Sharon got an ice pack from the freezer.

"Wasn't there something you said you wanted to talk to me about?" He asked when she joined him back on the couch.

"Oh, yes, there is." She sounded less than eager to share.

"Is it something to do with the wedding? It didn't sound like Fritz had any issues and there isn't anything in the personnel policy that-" She held up a hand to cut him off before he got too wound up.

"It has nothing to do with us as a couple. Fritz showed me this." She pulled the file she'd brought home out of her soft leather briefcase and handed it to him. Andy flipped it open, his confused look turning to one of surprise, then worry.

"Philip Stroh is back? In Pennsylvania?"

"Possibly. As Fritz said the connection is pretty thin."

"But it's there."

"Yes," she sighed. "It's there."

"Are you worried?"

"Of course I'm worried. I have never stopped worrying about Philip Stroh. But, I'm trying really hard not to get obsessed by my worry. After he killed Judge Schaeffer and escaped I spent months unable to sleep, jumping at every little noise, sure that every shadow was Stroh." Andy reached out to squeeze her hand. They hadn't been dating then, but he remembered how tired she'd often looked and how he'd wished there was something he could do to alleviate her fears. "The detective in me knew he was probably long gone, but the mother in me couldn't seem to stop being afraid that he was going to come back for Rusty. Until we finally catch him, a part of me will always have that fear."

"You don't have to be afraid, Sharon. He's not gonna get Rusty. Anyone who tries to get at him will have to get through the two of us. I mean the kid does live with us. And it's not just us, though we are a pretty potent duo if I do say so myself."

She smiled at the cocky comment. Andy always had an uncanny way of making her smile, even when she wanted to cry.

"You think Provenza and Julio and Mike and Amy are going to let anything happen to that boy?"

"No, I don't." She squeezed his hand back in thanks.

"Speaking of the devil…" They heard Rusty's key in the door as he entered the condo.

"Rusty," Sharon called out. "We got Chinese for dinner. We have some leftover spicy wontons, honey walnut shrimp and dragon noodles out here and there is a full carton of orange chicken in the fridge for you.

"I'm not really all that hungry. Thanks, Mom."

Sharon shared a look with Andy at Rusty's dejected tone.

"Is everything okay with Gus? Did he ask you what he wanted to ask you?"

"Yes, he did." Rusty entered the living room and sat in a chair across from them, not even commenting about all the Chinese food cartons, plates, and glasses on the coffee table. "He asked me to move in with him."

Sharon felt the same sharp stab of fear that she'd felt when Fritz handed her the Stroh file. How could she keep him safe if he wasn't living with her anymore? "Did you give him an answer?" She tried to sound nonchalant but Andy heard the slight tremor in the question.

"I told him I'd think about it."

"Okay, that's good. Thinking about it is good."

"Except I'm not going to think about it. I can't move in with him and when I tell him that at breakfast tomorrow morning he's going to break up with me."

"No, he's not."

"How do you know?" Andy's definitive response actually irritated Rusty rather than comforting him.

"Because I've been there. I was in the same boat as Gus last summer when I asked your mother to move in with me. It's tough throwing yourself out there and facing rejection. But if your mother had said no, that she wasn't ready, instead of saying yes, I never would have broken up with her."

"No?"

"Of course not. That was not an option."

"What would you have done?"

"I'd have just worked even harder to make sure she knew she could trust me and that moving in together would be a good thing for us. "

"Well, I'm not sure if Gus will feel the same." He rose and turned to head toward his bedroom.

"He will," Andy called out to Rusty's back, "If he really loves you."

Rusty didn't reply.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

A/N Here is my better late than never attempt at the Fuck You, Sharon Raydor is Alive Fanworks Fest. I think this chapter fits in well because it touches on two of the very few things that we actually got to know about Sharon and her personal life, that she is religious and that she had a really bad first marriage.

* * *

With two large manila envelopes under her arm, Sharon knocked on the door of the rectory. Father Stan was expecting her so she wasn't surprised when it was he who greeted her rather than Terry, the secretary who usually answered the door. His warm smile quickly faded, his face going slack.

"Father?" For just a moment she couldn't figure out why he was looking at her with such concern. She'd almost forgotten the bruise that was now turning a nice bluish-purple and could not be completely concealed by make-up, but when she did, her hand moved to her cheek. Thankfully Andy's prediction that she might get a "nice shiner" out of it had not come to fruition.

His eyes, filled with accusations, moved to the manila envelopes. "Who hurt you?" His question was even more accusatory.

"It wasn't Jack," she assured him, knowing exactly what conclusion he'd jumped to. And when he continued to stare at her she added, "And it wasn't Andy."

"I never thought it was Andy." He ushered her into the house.

"It happened at work. A suspect. He took exception to me calling him out for being a bullying, self-centered narcissist who couldn't take it when his girlfriend chose another man over him, so he killed her. Honestly, I was asking for it."

"No one asks for violence."

"They do if they don't have enough evidence to arrest a suspect they know is guilty and have to find a way to keep him locked up."

Stan muffled a laugh and shook his head. She might look the epitome of femininity, with her long wavy hair, stylish slim fitting clothes, and high heels, but Sharon was tough as nails. "And was he guilty?"

"You bet he was. He's spending the first day of a very long sentence in San Quentin today."

"Well, let's not just stand here in the hall. Come on, we'll go in and have a seat."

Sharon set off down the hall toward the living room. It was a path she'd taken many times before and she was as comfortable as she was visiting any of her friends. The rectory housed both the church's offices and the priests so she'd spent a lot of hours between these walls. She and Jack had been living in California for five years when they bought their home in Mar Vista and she'd changed her parish from St. Timothy's which had been close to their West LA apartment to St. Joe's which was closer to their new home. Emily was about to start kindergarten and Ricky was a baby so she liked the idea that St. Joe's had a school attached to the parish. Initially, she'd liked Father Ray, a grandfatherly man who embraced her and her children. However, as her marriage to Jack continued to disintegrate and she'd turned to her priest for guidance she'd been shocked by the hard line he'd taken with her. Time and again, his only advice had been to turn the other cheek. To continually forgive Jack his transgressions and look the other way at his infidelity. To hold the marriage together like a good Catholic wife no matter what the cost to her and her children. That sentiment hadn't been so surprising, divorce was anathema in the Catholic church. It was his lack of understanding and compassion that had actually had her considering a new church. And then, as if by some miracle, he'd been transferred to another parish and Father Stan had arrived. Stan was a breath of fresh air that she'd desperately needed. He was young and progressive. He embodied the charitable mission of the church that was so important to Sharon and most of all, he offered a sympathetic shoulder and compassionate counsel. Over the years he had become more than just her parish priest. He was the person she turned to first when she was in crisis or in need of counsel. He was the person with whom she wept when man's inhumanity to man took her into the same dark places that had caused her fiance to turn to alcohol. And in those times when the world seemed so bleak, so violent, so cruel, he prayed with her and helped her to keep her faith…in man and in God. Most recently he was the man who had encouraged her, despite the church's teaching on pre-marital sex and remarriage after divorce, to keep her heart open when she confessed to him that she was falling in love with Andy Flynn.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?" He asked as she sat in a wingback chair in the living room. Usually, she chose the couch, but given the tense squaring of her shoulders, this wasn't going to be a typically relaxed visit.

"No, I'm good. I have to get to work. I just wanted to drop by and give you these and ask you, what's next?" She handed him the two envelopes and he looked up with surprise.

"You already have Jack's questionnaire too?"

"Mmm…Turns out my children are quite good at blackmail."

He read the censure in her narrowed eyes. "You're upset with them?"

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know," she shook her head.

"Is this not what you wanted? Because if you don't want an annulment, we can stop things right here and now."

"No, no," she quickly protested. "Of course I want an annulment. I want to marry Andy in the church."

"I thought as much." He smiled warmly. "And by the way. Congratulations on the engagement. May I see the ring?"

Sharon held out her hand, smiling at the look of real delight on Stan's face. "I'm so happy for you," he said. "And for Andy. He's a good man and it's pretty obvious to the world how much he loves you. You definitely traded up."

"I have. " Her smile widened, remembering when Jack used that exact term after finding out that she was dating Andy but in a derogatory way, indicating that he did not think she'd traded up at all and she'd told him to 'go to hell'. Oh, how good that had felt.

"So," he leaned back in his chair. "Things are going well, why the conflicted emotions?"

"I could have done this on my own. You of all people know how hard I've tried to keep my kids from getting stuck in the middle between Jack and me."

"No one is questioning your ability to get things done. But, please know that your children came to me out of a place of love. They wanted to do this for you."

"I know their hearts were in the right place. But this is my battle, I don't want them out there fighting it for me."

"Sharon." He leaned forward and took her hand between his. "You are so good at doing for others. You're always the first one to jump in and try to help someone in need. You're not so good at letting others do for you."

She sighed, with a little shrug. It was a conversation they'd had many times before.

"Well, I want you to think about something. Think about how good it makes you feel when you're able to help someone you love. Take Rusty for example. I know that being able to give him a home, an education, and the kind of love and stability he never had in his life has given you greater joy and pleasure than he will ever know."

"Yes, it has." And yet no matter how strongly she protested he still thought of himself as a burden.

"So, why would you want to deny those who love you that same joy and satisfaction? Emily and Ricky were so happy to finally be able to give something back to you after everything that you've done for them over the years. Let them have that, Sharon. It isn't a weakness to let people help you. In fact, sometimes it's more selfish not to allow people the opportunity to be there for you when you need them."

Sharon mulled that over for a moment. Was she being selfish? It did feel good to help the people she loved. The rush of pleasure, the warmth that spread through her chest, the glowing sense of accomplishment, all of it felt good. "But I'm their mother. I should be helping them not the other way around."

"They're not little kids anymore."

"I know that. I just never wanted my children to feel the burden of my failed marriage."

"And it's time you let go of that guilt. You've worn it like a cloak for far too long. The demise of your marriage was not your fault. You did everything you could, went above and beyond, to make it work. I think you know how deeply I believe in the sanctity of the marriage vows. But I have also come to believe that there are times when those vows were not taken or upheld in good faith and the marriage causes so much suffering it becomes untenable. You gave Jack every chance to right himself and every time he walked away. It's not your penance, Sharon."

His eyes were soft with understanding and compassion and that was Sharon's undoing. Her throat grew thick with emotion and she swallowed convulsively, fighting back the sting of tears. She was NOT going to cry. She'd shed more than enough tears over Jack Raydor. It took her a few moments to regain her composure, but Stan waited patiently. She cleared her throat, but there was still a slight tremor when she was finally able to speak. "Maybe that's true, but I still can't help but feel guilty for what my children went through. I spent so many years having to be strong because I had no other choice. I was all that they had. I did everything in my power to make them feel safe and secure and to know that I would always be there for them. I didn't want them feeling scared or vulnerable because they didn't have a father."

"And you did a great job. But they're responsible young adults now. They're strong and they love you and they want to respect the childhood that you gave them by helping you to find the happiness that you deserve."

"I guess I need to let go a little, huh."

He chuckled and held his index finger and thumb apart to indicate an inch or so. "Maybe just a little. But I know you'll always be a lioness when it comes to those cubs." Some might have used the analogy of a Mama Bear, but that wasn't Sharon. Sharon, with her stunning green cat eyes, was sleek and feline, quiet and stealthy, sneaking up on those who might dare to harm her family and pouncing before they even knew what hit them. Sharon Beck could probably tell a story or two about that.

"Always. Until the day I die." She fidgeted, toying with an edge of the envelope. Something about being here always seemed to give her a sense of clarity into her emotions and motivations. She wasn't sure if it was the crosses on the walls and the religious pictures and statues or the many years she'd spent seeking comfort by unburdening herself to her priest, but whatever it was she felt safe here. It was one of the few places where she simply could not lie or hide from herself. Ever since she'd found out about Emily and Ricky's visit to Jack she hadn't been able to overcome a sense of anger. She'd blamed that anger on Jack, on her guilt and even on her kids overstepping boundaries, everywhere but where it truly came from.

"Sharon?"

"I wasn't completely honest with you earlier," she admitted. "I said that I was upset because I could have done this on my own. But that isn't the truth. The truth is, I'm not so sure I could have done it without the help from the kids and I think that's why I haven't been able to let go of this anger."

"Why do you think you couldn't have done it on your own?"

"Oh, I could have gotten the papers, I could have brought them to Jack. But, given who he is, especially his attitude lately, I don't think I ever would have gotten him to agree to the annulment."

"What do you mean his attitude lately?"

"Jack's always been difficult. He's always wanted to have his cake and eat it too. When we were separated, if he even got a hint that I might be dating someone, he'd come back and try to stake his turf. He didn't care to stay around, but he didn't want anyone else taking his place. Now we're divorced but the way he acts, you'd think we were still married and I'm having an affair with Andy. He's angry and bitter and jealous and I just don't get it."

"It sounds like Jack is finally understanding what he's lost. We often don't know what we have or treasure what we have until we actually lose it. "

"Yes, well. I don't think Jack was ever the person I thought he was and I spent far too many years trying to make him into something he was never capable of being. All those years I tried to convince myself that we were right for each other, but we never really were."

"And he still doesn't see that?"

"No. He didn't want the divorce. He would have contested it if it hadn't come down to money, particularly him having to pay up everything he owed me in child support from the day he first walked away. He gains nothing by agreeing to the annulment other than helping me to move forward in my life and that isn't exactly a priority for him."

"And yet he signed the papers and filled out the questionnaire."

"Because Emily and Ricky threatened they would never see him again if he didn't."

"Ah…Now I see what you mean by the middle. But they're adults and that was their choice."

"Yes, and it worked. And I am grateful. I guess I just wish I could wave a magic wand and make Jack a better person."

He smiled wryly. "There's no such thing as magic wands. But we can pray for him."

"I do, Father. All the time."

His eyes were sympathetic. "I know you do." In fact, for many years he'd prayed with her. The woman he'd first met, young, lovely, composed, brimming with intelligence but filled with anger, hurt and confusion as she prepared to legally separate from her husband and take a job in the Professional Standards Bureau, was not the same strong, assured and confident woman who sat before him today. When Sharon first met with him in this room, a little leery considering how she felt about his predecessor, it was easy to see the competence and confidence she had in herself professionally, even as she was questioning her decision to change jobs for the needs of her children. It was in her personal life that her self-esteem had been in shatters. She felt foolish for allowing Jack to manipulate her into a reconciliation attempt, only to leave her in more dire straits than he had the first time he'd left. His infidelity had her questioning herself as a woman and a wife and she was overwhelmed with guilt for the pain that her children were experiencing at the way their father came and went from their life. On top of that, she was scared to death about the hole that Jack had put her in financially. And yet, he'd never met a stronger, more determined and independent woman. It had been a privilege to watch her come through such trying times and evolve into the woman she was today. The fact that she could still pray for a man who had caused her and her children such pain and turmoil was a testament to her character.

"Why don't I take a look at what you've got here to make sure you aren't missing anything."

Sharon handed him the envelopes. One held Jack's questionnaire and statement. Stan quickly perused it until he found what he was looking for. Jack did indeed state that he would not contest the proceedings. Sharon's envelope was a little fuller. She had her application and questionnaire as well as her baptismal certificate, her marriage certificate, and her divorce papers. "It looks like everything is here."

"So, what's next?"

"Next, you need to come up with four witnesses who can attest to the state of your marriage. Witnesses from before you were married and early in the marriage would be ideal. The members of the tribunal will want to know both your states of mind as you wed and early on in the marriage."

"What kinds of people are we talking about here?"

"Family, friends, counselors, psychologists anyone who has an insight into the marriage and who witnessed what you went through. I'm not going to sugar coat this Sharon. It's going to get intimate and personal. Very personal. We're going to be digging into a very difficult time in your past, probably bringing up some really tough memories."

"I'm aware of that Father. I'll be okay. " She spoke confidently but couldn't completely hide the flicker of trepidation he saw in her eyes. "Will you be a member of the tribunal?"

"Normally I would, but I recused myself."

She flinched, confusion written all over her face. "What? Why? I was hoping you would be there in my corner."

His face softened. "I am in your corner. I recused myself because I'd like to be one of your witnesses. Who better than me to offering testimony into how hard you tried to help Jack with his sobriety. How much you struggled as a single mom after he left and how you were willing to try again and hold your family together, despite all your misgivings when he returned."

Sharon lifted one shoulder in a melancholic shrug. "I wanted to save him." Her smile was sad. Even though Jack walked away from their marriage and their children, disappearing with only a note of apology that was not entirely unexpected but was still the most cowardly and spineless thing he had ever done, she'd tried to tell herself that he had an illness. But even then she'd known that his alcoholism was not entirely to blame for his character flaws and she had no idea that there was worse to come. "Saving him wasn't realistic. It's like Andy always says, you can't save someone who isn't ready to be saved. They have to be ready and they have to save themselves."

Stan nodded in agreement. He'd only been a priest at St. Joe's for a few months when Jack returned supposedly sober and ready to be the husband and father Sharon had always wanted him to be. He had helped counsel her through the reconciliation attempt and was there for her as both her priest and her friend when Jack caved under the pressure and walked away again, not only cleaning out all their accounts but selling off the expensive piano that had been a gift to her from a beloved aunt, and she'd made the decision to make the separation legal and final. And when she was alone again, juggling a demanding job with motherhood, he'd helped connect her with parishioners willing to help out with daycare or "nightcare" before she'd transferred to the PSB and was still on patrol during hours when a traditional daycare was not open. And as much as she'd hated it, he helped her with financial aid to keep her kids at St. Joe's when the bills had started rolling in and the magnitude of Jack's gambling addiction had hit her straight in the face with a staggering credit card debt.

"You did everything you could, Sharon. You gave your best to Jack, you raised two beautiful, successful children on your own and you took in another who has grown in amazing ways under your care. And I will be happy to testify to that."

"I didn't know a priest could be a witness."

"They can. The only thing I can't discuss is anything that Jack said to me in confession." The weight of that statement lay heavy between them, their eyes meeting, filled with memories. Jack had only been to confession a few times, namely when Sharon had given him the ultimatum of getting sober or leaving. He'd shown up at church, drunk and maudlin, crying and filled with self-pity begging Stan to come to his defense, pleading with him to help change Sharon's mind.

Getting the call from Stan to pick Jack up because he was too stumbling drunk to get home on his own was embarrassing enough for Sharon. But it was nothing compared to the humiliation she felt while she and Stan were helping Jack down the stairs of the church and into her car while other parishioners were watching the spectacle. She could swear she felt the censure and pity in their eyes searing through her skin while her own eyes burned with tears of shame. In those moments she actually hated her husband.

"I also can't discuss anything that you said to me in the confessional without your permission."

Sharon's lips pursed and she inhaled deeply. So many intimate secrets had been confessed in that small dark cubical, so many heartaches, conflicts, worries, and yes, sins. She was no saint, she sinned like every other human being on earth. Finally, she spoke, unwavering eyes meeting his. "I trust you, Father. I know you won't divulge anything other than what needs to be said regarding the marriage. Besides, we spent as much time in this room discussing my marriage as we have in the confessional."

"That is true."

"I really appreciate you doing this for me. I know it will hold a lot of weight with the Bishop."

His lips twisted wryly. "Maybe, maybe not. I think you know how much he loves my progressive views."

Sharon grinned at his sarcasm. "We all love your progressive views, and that's what matters."

"I don't want you to worry about this. It's all going to work out just fine, I don't foresee any problems, especially with Jack not contesting. Although even if he had I'm sure the annulment would still be granted, it just might have taken years rather than months. Just make sure to get your list of witnesses in as soon as you can. You should probably talk to them first so they'll be prepared when the Bishop contacts them."

"Of course. I-" She broke off in mid-sentence as her cell phone rang and she began digging in her blazer pocket to find it. "Hold on just a sec, I may have to take this." She swiped her finger across the screen, typed in her password and read the text. "Sorry Father, it looks like I'm off to the morgue."

He shook his head with resignation at yet another murder and rose to squeeze a hand on her shoulder. "You've spent so much of your life doing what is best for your children. You worry about everyone but yourself. This is your time, Sharon. Enjoy it. Embrace it. And please give Andy my congratulations."

"I will, Father. And thank you for all your help. I think I may be leaning on you quite a bit over the next few months."

"Lean away, that's what I'm here for. And Sharon, I am always here for you."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

This is my own take on "Cleared History". It is a fanfic version, not a complete canon representation.

* * *

"You know, I really don't understand it. I've been taking the anti-inflammatory pills, I'm doing the exercises they gave me at physical therapy, and it doesn't hurt anymore, so why do I sometimes still get that tingling in my hand?" Andy looked across the dining room table as if Sharon could give him the answers his doctor couldn't. Because until that damn tingling went away they weren't going to allow him back in the field.

"Eventually you will agree with me, that it's stress."

"Stress? I don't feel stress. I mean where would this stress come from?"

"Well, being part of a mass shooting where your friends and colleagues were shot and killed in front of you is pretty stressful, not knowing who is going to replace Taylor is stressful, going across the country with your whole family and meeting your girlfriend's parents can be stressful, and I am pretty certain that asking someone to marry you can be a little stressful, and-" She cut off her litany of stress when she heard the door open.

"Rusty?" She'd only seen him briefly that morning at work and when she'd discreetly questioned him regarding his breakfast meeting with Gus, he'd simply told her he didn't know how to talk about yet. That, along with his hangdog expression, and general disinterest and disengagement in their case, told her that it hadn't gone well at all.

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry." His voice trailed off as he disappeared down the hall into his bedroom.

Andy took in her worry, along with Rusty's lack of appetite, and jumped to a different conclusion. "So, uh, did you get a chance to say anything to him yet about the Stroh report?"

"No, no, no. At this point, it's just conjecture. You know what, excuse me." Her boy was hurting and Mama Sharon could not let that go without offering some type of comfort.

Rusty's door was slightly ajar. She gave a couple knocks and pushed it open to find him sprawled on his back on the bed. Entering his room, she leaned back against the dresser. "What happened with Gus?" She asked.

"I gave him all the reasons I felt it was a bad idea to move in together. I'm still in college, I have law school after that. It will probably be years before I get a real job."

"And he broke up with you?"

"No, he didn't. He gave me that big smile of his like it's always the best day ever, and he said that his new promotion would let him pay for all of our living expenses and then some."

"And you still said no."

"Yeah, I did. And then he broke up with me."

"Is there any other reason why you said no?"

"It just doesn't feel right. Is that a reason? And also there's this really loud voice in my head screaming don't do it."

A chill of recognition ran through Sharon's veins. Those same voices had screamed at her not to marry Jack, only she hadn't listened to them. She'd shoved them aside, ignoring them until it was too late. "Instinct. Ask any cop. Sometimes there's a shiver that runs up your spine and you have to pay attention to that."

"But I've never loved anyone the way that I love Gus and the idea of never seeing him again makes me sick to my stomach.

"Which is why, once you've identified your instinct, then you've got to try to figure out where it came from in the first place and see if you can better explain yourself to Gus."

"I guess. Mom, I don't mean to be rude, but I think I'd just like to be alone right now."

Sharon nodded but bent to kiss the top of his head before she left. "I love you."

"I love you too."

"Everything okay?" Andy asked when she joined him back at the table.

"Mmmm…." She sat back in her chair, lost in her thoughts.

He eyed the platter of fish that lay between them. "Are you going to eat that?"

"No, I think I lost my appetite."

Andy speared the last piece of salmon, taking a bite before asking, "So you wanna tell me what's going on?"

"Gus broke up with Rusty."

"You're kidding."

She quirked a brow. "You sound surprised."

"Well, yeah. I am. I guess I gave the kid more credit than he deserved. I thought he loved Rusty."

"I think maybe he does."

"Breaking up with him is a funny way to show it."

"Hmm…"

"If it is love, it's immature love. Selfish love. And if that's the case, he's definitely better off not moving in with him."

She watched Andy continue to dig into his meal, finally asking, "Would you care to elaborate?"

He set down his fork and pushed his plate away. "Look, I've been where Gus is. I had a hard time getting up the courage to ask you to move in with me. When it's something you want that badly, it's a risk. But, like I said last night, if you'd said no, that you weren't ready, I sure as hell wouldn't have broken up with you. You're not doing what I want, so I'm going to dump you?" His face twisted with derision. "How selfish is that?"

She nodded in agreement.

"I'm not saying I wouldn't have been hurt or disappointed, but break up with you because you weren't on the same timeline as me? Hell no. I mean, seriously, how do you go from one minute wanting to share your entire life with someone to the next minute cutting them completely out of it?"

"I don't know. Sounds like he's cutting his losses."

"Well, I never would have done that. That isn't love."

"I know." She rested her hand over his with a tender smile. If there was one thing she was certain of in this uncertain world, it was how much Andy loved her.

"I would have just worked even harder to bring you around."

She lifted the hand she'd covered and kissed the back of it. "I know you would have. You are very stubborn. And very persuasive."

"You know it. No way was I ever going to lose you."

"Well, you were never in jeopardy of that happening. And, let's remember, this is Rusty we're talking about. Communicating his feelings is not his strong point. Who knows how he responded to Gus."

"Doesn't matter. If Gus is ready to move in with him, he ought to know the kid's baggage by now. I knew yours and I was prepared it."

"Yes, you were." She suppressed a smile at the memory. She'd told him they would talk about him selling his house and moving in together over dinner. But, before allowing her a simple yes or no, he'd carefully laid out all the benefits of living together. And, having already anticipated all the questions and concerns she might have, he had his answers in place. For a man who would have been happy jumping right into things, it was clear that he had done a lot of preparation. They were oil and water that way. He was impetuous, while she was all about meticulous planning. The fact that he understood and respected that about her, had warmed her heart and convinced her even more that she was making the right decision.

"And then you surprised me. When you said yes right away, it threw me off my game. I still had a lot of arguments left."

"Oh, and I ruined that for that you."

He grinned at the amusement dancing in her eyes. "Hardly. You made my night." He'd been so nervous walking into that restaurant. He knew he wasn't going to be able to eat a thing until he had her answer. When she'd said yes, it had turned the meal into a celebration.

"Well, I was ready and I wanted to share my life with you as much as you wanted to share yours with me. But, you know, with filling out the annulment paperwork, I've been thinking a lot about my marriage and I understand how Rusty is feeling right now. Gus is his first love. He's terrified of losing him and never feeling that way again, even when every instinct he has is screaming at him that he isn't ready."

"You sound like you speak from experience. Is that how you felt with Jack?"

She nodded sadly, with a resigned sigh. "Yes. I knew I wasn't ready, and I knew I shouldn't let him pressure me. But, I was so afraid of losing him. Looking back, I know what a red flag that was, but I was so young and so inexperienced. I thought I'd never feel the way I was feeling for him ever again."

He nodded with understanding. "It's hard when you're young to know the difference between selfish love, love, and forever love."

"Mmm, that's the truth… I thought Jack pressuring me to marry him was an indication of his passionate love for me. I thought it was romantic. Now I know it was all about fear and selfishness. He wanted me out here because he didn't want to be alone, and because he was afraid that he was going to lose me if I went off to Yale and started to work toward my own dreams. Neither of us really trusted the other, and you can't build a life with a foundation lacking in trust."

"No, you can't." Lack of trust had been a huge issue in his marriage as well.

"What I have with you is so different." She rose from the table and moved to him, sitting on his lap and cupping his face in her palms. "You're my forever love, Andy."

"And you're mine. " His words were muffled against her mouth when she pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss. Then she pulled back, continuing to stroke her fingertips over the planes of his cheeks, her eyes searching his, reading nothing but truth and love in their soft, melted chocolate depths.

"You know, I used to think that kind of stuff was bullshit," he said. A few years ago, the term forever love would have had him scoffing and rolling his eyes. "But the things that I feel for you, and the way that I feel about us, it's not like anything I've ever felt for anyone before. Ever. " He pulled the hand that was stroking his face toward his mouth and kissed her palm with a reverence that caused Sharon's breath to catch in her chest.

"Oh, God."

They both gave a start, the romantic moment cut short by Rusty coming around the corner from the living room with a disgusted groan. A few months ago, they might have jumped apart, but now they were comfortable in their relationship and unafraid to show affection in front of others.

Rusty put his head down and made his way into the kitchen, ignoring what was going on in the dining room. "Don't mind me, I'm just getting a drink."

"Don't worry, we won't," Andy assured him, holding Sharon in place on his lap when she started to rise.

Although Rusty shook his head as he opened the refrigerator, the little intimate moment was far less compromising than some of the positions he'd caught them in in the past. Still, given the tender state of his heart, witnessing anything romantic hurt.

Sharon's phone went off where she'd left it near her plate and she rose to answer it. "Hello, Mike." She listened to what her Lieutenant had to say, responded, and then hung up.

Andy was already on his feet, grabbing for the suit coat he'd discarded when they got home from work. He'd heard enough from her side of the conversation to know where they were going. "Back to headquarters?"

She nodded. "Back to headquarters."

* * *

A break had come in their latest case. Money was found. A lot of money. Apparently, their murder victim, Gavin Jacobs, while working for a security company, had stolen computers from his clients and was then using what he found on their hard drives to blackmail them. Mike had been trying throughout the night to get through the encryption and find out what was on his computer, as that would ultimately show them who had the most to gain from his death. Meanwhile, the rest of the team was in the process of interviewing the 13 people who'd had their laptops stolen. Sharon was watching one of those interviews, along with Andy, Andrea, Rusty, Wes and Buzz when Mike entered the room.

"Captain, we cracked the password on the victim's laptop, but I just want to say, prepare yourselves."

Sharon paused mid-rise at those ominous words and sat back down, steeling herself for what was to come. She knew it was going to be bad, not just from Tao's solemn warning, but by the way Julio was unable to meet her eyes when she entered the murder room. Still, one could never be completely prepared to process the kind of despicable perversion that popped up on the computer screen when Mike hit play. At the first sight of the naked young girl in the midst of a carnal act she should have been years away from partaking in, her stomach fell and clenched. For a moment, she thought she might be sick. Corpses she could deal with, but this…this…

"Now we know why all the extra effort to protect his files," Julio stated flatly.

"Oh my God, how old are those girls?" Amy asked.

"11...12" Mike responded without looking at the screen. He'd seen more than enough.

"Eh Gods." Provenza shook his head with disgust and walked away.

Rusty got a glimpse of what was on the screen, then, processing the revulsion on display in the room, he was overcome by a sickening wave of shame. Those girls, they were only a year or two younger than he was when he'd started turning tricks on the street. One guy had even offered him a lot of money to make a video. When he'd seen the camera, he pretended to go along with it, then when the guy was in the bathroom, he'd run away and lost almost a whole nights pay. That could have been him they were all watching. The very idea of his mother seeing him like that, of having that look that she had right now, a combination of dismay and repugnance, made him want to run. In the past, he would have run, and it took every ounce of strength that he had to remain rooted in the same spot. _You can't run from your past, it follows you wherever you go._ Words of wisdom that his mother had been impressing upon him for years.

"Stop, stop, Mike, I've had enough." Sharon closed her eyes with relief when Mike shut the laptop and she didn't have to watch any more of that filth.

"Gavin has a ton of this stuff on his hard drive."

Sharon swallowed against the bile that rose in her throat.

"Okay, first we should make sure that neither the victim nor his roommate were depicted in any of these videos or photos. Or their clothes or furniture."

Sharon could hear Andrea speaking. She understood what she was saying, yet, even although Mike had shut the screen, she was still trying to work through what she'd just witnessed. She took a deep breath. Breaking down over this wasn't going to get them anywhere. She was a professional, she had to keep it together and nail the pervert who got off on this stuff and the ones profiteering from it. "Mike, call the FBI and tell them what we've got here and see if they can help us clarify where these pictures came from." She walked away, needing to distance herself from those videos.

"Did all this stuff belong to the victim or someone he was blackmailing?" Rusty asked Provenza.

"That's what we're gonna have to try and find out. Human beings, what a species, huh?"

"Sharon?" Andy glanced up when she paused at his desk. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, um. Just tired." She rubbed at her temples. They'd worked right through the night and it was now almost noon. "There's really nothing more we can do here until the FBI goes through everything. I think we should go home and get some sleep."

"It has been a long night," he agreed.

"You want to stop and get some lunch?" She asked as they got on the elevator. The bagels and coffee Wes had brought them at 6:30 am had long since worn off.

"No. After watching that crap I don't have much of an appetite," Andy said. "I think I just want to get a few hours of shut-eye. You?"

"I'm good."

* * *

Back at the condo, they were both too tired to do much more than strip off their clothes and slip under the covers in their underwear, falling sound asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow. When they awakened almost six hours later, it was dark in the bedroom.

"You gonna take a shower?" Andy asked when the alarm went off.

"No, I'm too tired to deal with drying my hair tonight. I'll take one in the morning."

"Me too."

Sharon swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment in her bra and panties, yawning and stretching her limbs. Her stomach gave a little rumble of distress, causing Andy to chuckle.

"I'm hungry too," he admitted.

"Mm…" she hummed. "What do you want to do for dinner? I thawed out some chicken and we have spaghetti squash. We could do something with that and make a small salad to go with it. Or, we could just make some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches."

"Tomato soup and grilled cheese sounds good to me, I don't feel like really cooking."

"Me either. Comfort food it is."

They got dressed in comfortable lounging clothes, Sharon pinned her hair back from her face, and they went out to make dinner. Rusty arrived home in time to eat with them and then they all settled in the living room, Rusty doing schoolwork, while Andy and Sharon worked on their case. Andy was getting himself a drink when his phone rang. Sharon heard the end of the conversation when he came out of the kitchen.

"I don't envy you. Yeah, well, thanks Mike, I'll see you tomorrow." Andy clicked off his phone and approached the couch where Sharon was seated making notes on a legal pad. He knelt on the carpet behind her. "That's Tao. He's sitting with the FBI taskforce combing through the database looking for similar material and they're only halfway done." Sharon inhaled deeply and looked to the heavens. She could only imagine what Tao was going through having to watch hour upon hour of those horrific videos and pictures. After less than a minute, she'd been very close to vomiting.

"So far no furniture or clothing that match anything belonging to Jacobs or 'wigged out'."

"Could someone have killed the victim for collecting child porn?" Rusty asked.

"Most likely Gavin found it on one of the computers he stole and was extorting the owner for large sums of money." Sharon continued to write her notes while she spoke. It helped her to get her thoughts out before they slipped away.

"Just possessing that kind of trash you could end your life in prison," Andy said.

"Okay, well don't get me wrong, those pictures and those videos, they were beyond disgusting, obviously, but if the suspect didn't make them-"

"No, no, no," Andy cut him off. "It doesn't work that way. Trading in kiddie porn creates a market to abuse more children."

"And the problems don't end with molestation," Sharon added. "Sexually assaulted children usually take years to process the experience, and then the trauma can be triggered again by situations that emotionally they feel is similar.

"Emotionally similar?" Rusty's heart skipped a beat, suddenly he got it.

"Yes." Sharon's eyes narrowed and lasered in on Andy rubbing his hand. He stopped as soon as he saw she was watching. She knew it was tingling-and that he was trying to hide that from her.

"You should come to yoga with me this weekend," she said, setting her legal pad down beside her on the couch.

He rolled his eyes.

"Don't give me that look. The doctor said it's good to stretch it out."

"He also said massage might help."

"Yes, he did." She fought a smile at his hopeful tone.

"Well, if I'm weighing in between yoga or a Sharon Raydor special neck massage, guess which one I'm going to choose?"

"You're nothing if not predictable." She rose, stretched her muscles out, then reached for his hand. "Come on, I'll give you the massage. Tomorrow's going to be another long day. Good-night, Rusty."

"'Yeah, night kid."

"Um…Yeah... Good-night."

* * *

Andy rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. 3:00 am. Sharon had been gone for over a half hour. Shoving the blankets off, he sat on the side of the bed rubbing his hand through his hair. It had been a rough night. He'd felt her tossing and turning from the moment they shut the lights off, and this time not because of a hot flash. He knew when she had those. She 'd roll away from him, stick a bare leg out, or kick off the covers, only to shiver and pull them back up after only a minute or so. "That's why they call them flashes," she said when he questioned how quickly she went from hot to cold. This was different. And he knew why. Because he wasn't finding it any easier to sleep than she was.

He found her in the living room, sitting in the dark staring into space, a cup of tea and a discarded book beside her on the end table.

"Sharon?"

She looked up at him with a little smile, holding out her hand. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"No." He bent to kiss her forehead, before kneeling beside her chair. "I rolled over and you weren't there. But I couldn't sleep either."

"I know." She'd heard him sigh a couple times and reposition himself, which wasn't like him. Andy wasn't a restless sleeper. "It's just. Every time I close my eyes I keep picturing those little girls."

"Me too. I see Nic at that age, snuggling in bed with her stuffed animals, not with…well."

Sharon nodded, tears welling in her eyes. She'd thought of Emily too, her little ballerina, and the shattering of innocence. Thankfully, their daughters had never experienced that kind of abuse. But one of her son's had.

"I can't stop thinking about Rusty. I've tried really hard not to dwell on the life that he lived in those crack houses with his mother and then out on the streets. But, when I think about what those men did to him, the kinds of things that he was subjected to when he was just a little boy…it just….Oh, God… Andy, it breaks my heart." She lost the tenuous hold she had on her tears and covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking with soft sobs.

Andy rose, gently pulling her over to the couch where he could hold her in his arms. Nothing he could do or say could change, or make her feel better about what happened to her boy, so he didn't try. He just held her until she stopped crying.

"I'm sorry," she said blotting at her eyes with a little sniffle when he handed her a tissue. It wasn't the first time she'd cried over Rusty, but it was the first time she'd allowed herself to cry with someone else. For years she'd put on a brave face, hiding her pain over the nightmare of his childhood and forcing back the fury she so often felt toward the mother who had neglected, abused and finally abandoned him. But sometimes it had proven to be too much, and alone in her bed at night, she'd wept for him.

"Sweetheart, there's nothing to be sorry about. Bottling everything up isn't healthy."

"I guess it just caught up with me. Some cases do that."

"They do. This is the kind of shit that used to send me into a bottle."

She looked up, a flash of worry crossing her face. "Do you need to go to a meeting?"

Her concern left him feeling warm all over. "No, I'm okay," he said while brushing a tendril of hair back off her face. "Sometimes all it takes is having someone to talk it out with."

"You know I'm always here for you, Andy." She toyed with the hem of his t-shirt, the way she did when she was nervous or uncomfortable. "But if you need more than I can give you. If you need a meeting. I want you to know that I understand."

"I know you do. And I appreciate that more than you can ever know."

Not many people really understood the importance of AA in his life. For a long time, there had been his job and AA, and not much else. The program had changed that for him. It had given him his life back. It had saved his job, several friendships, and most importantly his relationship with his daughter. And, without AA, there was no way he would be sitting here today in the most profound, amazing relationship he'd ever had in his life. Because without AA, he wouldn't have Sharon. AA had given him back his dignity. It had allowed him to examine, understand, and accept his past. It had given him the courage to apologize to all those he had hurt with his bad behavior and was there to support him when not all his amends had been met with grace, but instead, with bitterness and skepticism. Best of all, it had enabled him to become a better man and to have hope for a better future. It had been his lifeline. And now, 20 years into his sobriety, it was allowing him the opportunity to give back and help others going through what he'd gone through. Not everyone understood that. Certainly not many of the women he'd dated over the years, and definitely not his ex, but Sharon did. She understood him and saw things in him that nobody ever had.

"You think you can get some sleep now?" He asked, when he saw her yawn, her head falling sleepily against his shoulder.

"I do." She placed a sweet kiss on his rough jaw before rising and following him into their bedroom, feeling much lighter than when she'd left. After so many years on her own, she'd grown used to keeping her emotions to herself. And for the most part, she was okay with that. She was strong and confident in her abilities to handle whatever was thrown at her. But, she'd almost forgotten how nice it was, how comforting, to have someone to share her feelings with. Someone who was there in the middle of the night when things always seemed so much worse than in the light of day. Someone who could understand, and, even when there was nothing he could say or do to help, simply hold her and make her feel less alone.

It felt good.

* * *

"I didn't molest anybody. I'm the victim here. I was molested as a kid. I didn't know how to talk to anybody about it. I…I tried to keep it a secret. How do you tell someone you've been sexually abused?"

They had their suspect. Dean Lewis, a young adult author of all things. Now he was trying to explain himself, explain why he had a laptop filled with child pornography, and Rusty was finding that his excuses were hitting a little too close to home. His head down, sick to his stomach, he listened to the rest of the plea bargain, listened to Dean's lawyer accept Andrea's terms with the promise to expose every child pornographer he'd come into contact with.

"I don't want to hear any more of this." If Julio had his way Dean would be on his way to the electric chair right now, and he'd be happy to flip the switch.

"Well, nobody wants you in there with the guy anyway," Provenza said.

"Yeah, you can help Provenza and me file the report. It'll take hours," Andy said, following Provenza and Julio out of the interview room.

Sharon turned to Rusty who was still looking a little green around the gills. "And that means you're free to go," she said. "Andrea won't need you anymore tonight."

"Well, I might as well wait for you. I don't really have anywhere else to be."

"I wonder if that's true."

Rusty watched her leave the room. Situations that felt emotionally similar. That's what she'd said to him last night. Was that why he was reacting so strongly to Gus wanting to move in with him and to this case? Because he'd been molested too?

Before Sharon, before Dr. Joe, he never would have used that term for what he'd gone through. Back when he'd first moved in with her, Sharon had referred to him as a victim, had implied that he'd been raped, and he'd lashed out at her. He wasn't a victim. He'd been in charge of his life. After all, he was the one who'd gone out on the street soliciting men. He'd asked for it, right? At the time, he'd thought so. But now, after years of therapy, he understood more. Sharon was right. He had been a victim. A survivor. After years of having to take care of himself and his mother, he might have felt like an adult, but at only 13 when he'd been abandoned, forced to live on his own and to try to find a way to survive, he really was just a child. Sure, he'd had other choices. He could have gone into foster care. But, back then, he'd been so sure that his biological mother would return for him, the last thing he wanted to do was disappear into the foster care system.

Yet, that interview with Dean had him thinking hard about what might have happened to him if Sharon hadn't taken him in. What if she hadn't offered him unconditional love, along with food, shelter and an education? What if she hadn't pushed through his resistance and gotten him the counseling that he now knew he'd needed with Dr. Joe? Where would he be today? Dead. Maybe. But what scared him more than that, scared him down to the very marrow of his bones, was Dean Lewis. Could he have become like Dean?

He knew the statistics. A few years ago when he was looking for a stamp, Sharon had told him to look in her desk drawer. In the drawer, he'd seen a book she was reading, "When Your Child Has Been Molested: A Parents Guide to Healing and Recovery." His heart hammering, he'd opened it. She had highlighted several passages. He read one on suicide rates and another that had stated that boys who were sexually abused, particularly if they came from a home with severe maternal neglect and violence, often turned out to be abusers themselves. He'd slammed the book shut, closed the drawer, and tried to forget what he'd read. Now he couldn't help but wonder… Could he have turned out like Dean Lewis if Sharon hadn't come along? He owed almost everything he was today to Sharon, his mother, and he wasn't quite ready to let that go yet. Despite his façade of bravado, inside he was still a mass of insecurities. Somehow, he knew he had to fix that, to finish his healing process before he could completely give himself to someone else. And to do that he needed to stay right where he was. He probably should have articulated that better to Gus, but until now, he hadn't completely realized what had been holding him back.

When Gus had offered to pay for everything if they moved in together, it had spent him spiraling into a tailspin and he hadn't been able to think straight. He'd worked so hard to change his views on sexuality, to divorce the things he'd done as a boy that felt so dirty and shameful, from the relationship he was in today as a young man. He hadn't even realized how warped his views about sex were until Sharon had tried to help him see the difference.

One night, before Andy had moved in, after telling Sharon that he'd be out late with TJ, he'd come home to find the door to her bedroom ajar. He'd heard his mother's soft moans and the deeper rough groans coming from Andy, along with the tell-tale thumping of the bed. The kind of obscene sounds and behavior that he'd experienced with his biological mother but had never associated with Sharon. He'd thought she was above all that. Later, when he'd expressed that sentiment to her, Sharon had been appalled by his views. She'd tried to explain to him that sex was not supposed to be a transactional act or one that left a person feeling degraded, that at it's best it was a physical joining meant to express love and give pleasure. At the time he'd been embarrassed by the conversation. No kid liked to talk about sex with their mother, especially after knowing she'd just been having sex. But it was a conversation that had stuck with him because it had helped him to look at sex in a totally different way.

Then he'd met Gus and they'd become intimate, and that sure hadn't been easy. There were a lot of emotions he'd had to work through and he knew there were times he tried Gus's patience. But it was difficult to change gears, to view an act that he'd dreaded and detested to one that was supposed to express love. But he was working through it and slowly things were getting better. Then, out of the blue Gus had thrown this curveball at him, asking him to move in with him, then offering to pay for everything when he'd said he couldn't afford it. Suddenly, in an instant, his past had flooded back, washing over him, drowning him in waves of humiliation and self-disgust. He couldn't allow Gus to be one of those men, paying for his services. He just couldn't.

And now he'd done as his mom had requested. He'd identified his instinct, figured out where it came from, all that was left was to explain it all to Gus and hope for the best.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N-Just want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your patience. I know it took a long time for this chapter to finally be posted. Also, a thank you shout out to MkSC for banging ideas around with me and for looking the chapter over. Of course any and all mistakes are mine and mine alone._

* * *

"So, your Mom is getting married. How do you feel about that?"

Rusty looked up from the chessboard, a flash of surprise crossing his face as he met the curious gaze of his psychiatrist. Blowing out a deep sigh, he shook his head with resignation. "I don't know why I should be surprised you already know. It's not like you can keep any secrets around here."

Dr. Joe's lips twisted with wry amusement. "I've been invited to the engagement party. But that doesn't answer my question."

"How do I feel about it?"

"Yes."

"Well, my Mom is happy, so of course I'm happy."

"Of course you're happy?"

"Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"How am I looking at you?"

"Oh my God. Like I'm not telling you the truth."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Because there was a time that wasn't the case."

"What wasn't the case?"

"You being happy about it. There was a time that your Mom was happy about her relationship with Andy and you weren't quite so sure about it."

He shrugged. "That was a long time ago."

"Not so long."

Rusty slumped back in his seat and gave Dr. Joe a long look. His feelings about his mother and Andy were complicated and had gone through many changes over the years as he'd watched them grow from adversaries to friends, from lovers to engaged. Back when Sharon had first taken him in, she'd also just been promoted to leading Major Crimes, and as an outsider, with an inside view, he'd been a keen observer of the dynamics running through the division.

It hadn't taken long to notice that Sharon most often relied on the blunt, no-nonsense Andy Flynn, rather than her second in command, Provenza. Which he supposed made sense because Provenza had been slow to overcome the grudge he had over her getting the job he assumed would be his.

And, when it came to finding his biological mother, it was Andy she approached for help. The brash lieutenant was sarcastic and didn't give an inch, but strangely enough, Rusty rather liked that about him. It was honest. Andy didn't pretend to like him and he never tried to bullshit him. He hated people who tried to bullshit him. Later, when they'd found his mother and convinced her to return, Andy was the one that Sharon asked to accompany him to the bus stop to greet her.

What happened at that bus stop was something he tried very hard not to think about. Though he hadn't known it then, that night was the final severing of any kind of mother/son relationship he would ever have with Sharon Beck. And Andy Flynn had been sitting right by his side when it happened. He'd been worried about how Flynn might react when he met his mother. She was the kind of woman for whom the caustic detective would normally have nothing but contempt. A drug addict who'd run off with her drug addict boyfriend. A dirtbag who'd abandoned her thirteen-year-old son to the streets. Those were the kinds of judgments he'd never been shy about making. Instead, rather than condemning the woman, Andy had been surprisingly kind and gone out of his way to help calm his nerves while they waited.

Then the bus arrived and nothing played out the way it was supposed to. His mother was supposed to walk off that bus, pull him into her arms and apologize for all the years she'd neglected and abused him. All the years she'd brought violent and dangerous men into their lives.

She was supposed to get down on her knees and beg him to forgive her for walking away and leaving him behind to fend for himself. She was supposed to magically transform into the kind of mother he'd always fantasized about having. It was supposed to be the moment he'd been dreaming about for two years.

Instead, he stood next to Andy watching as the passengers began disembarking from the bus, his excitement quickly turning to dread as the line of people began to dwindle down. When the last of them stepped off the bus and it became more and more apparent that his mother was not on board, his stomach clenched painfully. For a moment, he thought might throw up. Andy gave him a hand gesture, urging him not to panic just before he hopped on the bus to see if maybe she was still on board. But he'd known Andy wouldn't find her, maybe he'd known all along. His mother had taken the money Andy sent her and disappeared, probably used it for drugs, and every hopeful fantasy he'd had about their reunion came crashing down around him, causing him to run before he burst into tears like a baby.

He'd had two choices that night. Run away again and disappear into the night like so many other homeless, broken teens. Or, recognize that he was not that homeless, hopeless boy anymore. That he had a place to go. A woman who had opened her home, her pocketbook…and her heart to him. A woman he was quickly learning would never let him down.

Back at the condo, he'd finally forced himself to look at his childhood without the blinders he'd been wearing for two years. The blinders he'd put on the day he realized that his mother had truly abandoned him. Because he had to believe it wasn't her fault. No mother would just walk away and leave her child behind. It was Gary's fault, he'd made her do it, and one day she would get away from him and come back and they would live happily ever after. He had to believe that. Had to cling to some kind of hope that he might return to a life that had never really existed because the life that he was living on the street was about as bleak and ugly as it got. Now he knew that happily ever after was never going to happen, even if his mother did one day return. Because the truth was, the life that he'd led before she left him behind had been anything but happy.

Looking at his past square in the face, he saw a young boy living with his addicted mother as a squatter in an abandoned, condemned crack house. It was filthy, reeking of vomit, urine and body odor. No one ever cleaned. Cockroaches crawled all over the place and a rat had even bitten him once while he slept. His mother and her boyfriend of the week stayed up all hours drinking and shooting up. By morning, they were too wasted to even wake up. So, he did his best to find something to eat, more often than not finding nothing, and left for school. Because if he didn't go to school the authorities would come looking and they would take him away from his mother and he'd never see her again. Whatever kind of mess she was, she was all he knew. All he had.

But when he got to school, his homework wasn't finished because he hadn't understood much of it and the help that he'd needed wasn't there. So, he'd just given up and not bothered with it. Moving from school to school to school didn't lend itself to a great education. But that didn't bother him as much as the kids who wrinkled their noses at him and called him names because he smelled bad. He couldn't find any quarters in his mother's pockets to go to the run down Laundromat around the corner and do their laundry, so he'd been forced to wear dirty clothes. And he hadn't showered in days because the abandoned house they were living in had its water cut off.

Then, when school was out, he had to go home, such as it was. And he didn't know whether to hope his mother and her boyfriend were still passed out, or awake. Because awake could sometimes be so much worse. Awake meant that when he let the door slam shut he got a beating for making too much noise. And while he was getting that beating he was being called a "little shit" a "bastard" a "noisy motherfucker" and, the worst, for him, a "faggot". Too young, too weak to defend himself, he'd slink off to a corner filled with pain and anger. His mother, the one person in the world who should have protected him, never defended him, never stood up for him. In fact, if she even bothered to check and see how he was, she would blame him for the beating, telling him he should have known better than to make so much noise and set off Bob, Mike, JC, Coot, Gary, whichever man she was currently in "love" with.

And then, after she'd left him behind and he'd gone through a string of abusive foster homes and a year on the streets, he'd ended up here in this beautiful high rise condo in the heart of wealthy Los Feliz where everything was always neat and clean and smelled good, like scented candles and the fresh flowers that always graced the tables. He not only had a bed with clean sheets and blankets, but he also had his own bedroom. He was living with a woman who not only took care of herself but took care of him as well. A woman who brought him grocery shopping and asked him what kinds of food he liked to eat and then stocked her refrigerator and cupboards with his favorites. A woman who made sure he had healthy meals right down to the apple she put in his lunch sack every day.

For the first time in his life, he did not have to worry about where his next meal was going to come from, or if there would even be a next meal. Nor did he have to worry about dirty, torn clothes. This woman took him shopping and bought him new clothes. Not just his school uniform khakis and light blue polo shirts, things he actually liked, and they were always freshly laundered so he had clean clothes every day.

Yes, this woman had rules and there were boundaries and no he didn't always like that, but she always spoke to him kindly and with respect. She didn't lash out and call him names, even when he knew he might have deserved a few when he was being particularly rude and disrespectful to her. She had conversations with him, gently leading him toward making the right decisions rather than forcing them on him. She talked a lot about his future and offered to help him with school applications so he could get a good education at some fancy private Catholic school she wanted him to attend. She even offered to hire a tutor because thanks to his haphazard schooling he was so far behind other kids his age.

For the first time since he could remember, he was not in the parenting role. For the first time, he had someone taking care of him. Someone who checked in on him at night before bed and who got him up in the morning to go to school because she was already up and dressed, impeccably so, for work. No drug-hazed mornings for Sharon Raydor. He had someone who cooked for him rather than him having to cook for her because she was too strung out and sick to be hungry as had been the case with his mother. Sharon Raydor WAS the parent; she had herself and her life together and did not need anyone taking care of her the way he had always had to take care of Sharon Beck.

Sitting in what had become "his" bedroom he'd finally faced the reality of his life as it had been, as it was today, and where it might be in the future. And, with that reflection and the recognition that his future might very well be right here, he was able to let down a few of his defenses with Sharon, even filling out paperwork for that private school she wanted him to attend. But, he'd put up a few walls with the lieutenant he'd run away from that night. The naïve eagerness for his mother's arrival that he'd expressed to Andy while they waited for the bus was humiliating. When he thought about all those things he'd made Andy promise; to be nice to her, to not question her decision to abandon him, to make sure there wasn't a mini bar in her room, it made him cringe. He felt like an idiot, and Andy had witnessed it all.

To his credit, Andy had never mentioned a word of it. And, when his biological father had shown up on the scene and turned out to be a selfish prick with a quick fist, Andy had been nothing but supportive.

Then, just he was putting his biological parents behind him and was starting to feel more comfortable in his new life, his friend Kris had ratted him out, telling Emma Rios about the threatening letters he'd been receiving. In an effort to keep Rios from persuading Chief Taylor to send him off into witness protection, Sharon elicited the help of her second in command. With that shift, Lieutenant Provenza suddenly became the central male figure in his life.

That gravitation toward Provenza continued after Sharon attended Nicole's wedding with Andy. Because something had definitely changed between them that day. There was a new dynamic when they were together. Overnight the close professional relationship they shared had suddenly, and unexpectedly, become personal.

Andy was no longer Lieutenant Flynn, he was just Andy, and Andy, much to the chagrin of Provenza, was the only member of the team to refer to their Captain more informally as Sharon. That had certainly not gone unnoticed and neither had the fact that the two of them had begun doing things together outside of work. Sometimes Sharon would call to say that they were working late and she was going to run out for a bite to eat with Andy or she'd go off to some movie she'd been dying to see with him, or to a baseball game or an art gallery opening. He'd even heard her on the phone asking him to be her plus one at some charity event, which had really surprised him because those were the kinds of things she usually asked Gavin to attend with her. Andy even started showing up occasionally on Sunday afternoons to munch on nachos and watch football with her, his favorite garlic guacamole and cranberry lime seltzer water now stocked in her fridge. Which, if he was being completely honest, wasn't all bad because it kept her from bugging him to watch with her. Despite her best efforts Sharon had yet to turn him into a football fan.

All of this made him look at Andy through new eyes. Though he despised analyzing his motivations, he did recognize that he was, by nature and circumstances, suspicious of people. In his experience, people weren't ever what they pretended to be. Well, except for Sharon. Sharon was the only genuine person in his life, the only one who'd turned out to be the real deal. Most people, he'd found, had ulterior motives for everything they did. So, once Andy had become a bigger fixture in Sharon's life he'd started wondering if the man's helpful intentions had been more about making a good impression and helping Sharon than about helping him, and he'd continued to turn more to Provenza for advice. Given Provenza's more adversarial past with Sharon, he knew the man was completely unbiased and not looking at things just from her perspective. The same could not be said for Andy. Andy was always protecting Sharon and her perspective.

But he'd been okay with their friendship, even as he could see a growing connection between them. A certain softness in their eyes when they thought the other wasn't looking, a way that Sharon had of always reaching out to touch Andy, and the tender way Andy talked to her, not at all the tough, cynical guy he was at work. Things you would have to be blind not to see.

Or in denial.

But there had been nothing romantic, nothing sexual. And he found that platonic dating was fine, especially when it kept his focused less on him, giving him greater freedom.

Then, Christmas a couple of years ago when Andy and Sharon had been struggling to define their relationship to Nicole, he'd had to go and rock the boat, bringing to their attention everything that he'd been witnessing, and something had clicked. For his mother anyway. He was pretty sure that Andy was well aware of what was going on. But with his mother, he'd seen it all play out on her face. Oh, she'd tried denying it, but the look in her eyes contradicted her protests that they were not dating. She knew it was true. They'd been dating all right, just not in the romantic sense.

And then she'd come home one day and told him that Andy had asked her out on a date. _A date._ She'd never used that word before when it came to going out with Andy, it had always been, " _I'm going to a movie with Andy"_ or _"I'm going to a Dodger game tonight with Andy."_ But even with this new terminology, he still hadn't worried too much, figuring it would just be more of the same. After all, middle-aged people weren't into romance and sex, right?

How wrong he'd been. The night of the date Sharon was as nervous as he'd ever seen her. She'd tried on at least five dresses, including a new one, asking his advice on each one. After the fourth dress he'd had enough, groaning, _"I don't know why you're getting so worked up, it's just Andy, he sees you every day."_ She'd given him a glare, then turned back to her bedroom muttering, _"I knew I should have called Gavin."_ This unsure woman plagued by nerves was someone he didn't know. It was a side of Sharon he'd never seen before. The only Sharon he knew was calm, cool, self-confident and decisive.

Later that night he'd been sitting on the couch doing homework when she came home from the date all starry-eyed, like some teenage girl swooning over her latest crush, her fingertips playing over her lips in a way that suggested she was reliving a kiss. That was when it really hit him. When he realized that his mother's relationship with Andy had taken a dramatic turn and that romantic dating was definitely a whole new ballgame.

And yes, that did make him a bit squeamish. In the three years that he'd lived with Sharon, he'd never seen her in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. Even when Jack had come to stay for a few days back when they were still married, Sharon had made him sleep on the couch and there had been no affection whatsoever between the two.

So, when Andy had to move in with them temporarily because of a dangerous blood clot in his carotid artery and suddenly his mother was all flirty and giggly and she was cuddling up to him while they watched TV, sharing soft, mushy looks with him and kissing him goodnight, it felt awkward…disconcerting …as if he didn't know her anymore. Because he'd never seen this side of her. Ever.

Still, when Sharon had explained the seriousness of a clot in the carotid artery and that it could be life-threatening, the cold dread that settled like a weight in his stomach made him realize how much he had come to care about Andy. The idea that he could actually die had scared him enough to offer Andy his bedroom after Sharon had assured him that he would not be sharing her room.

Which was another thing that was really strange.

In the 13 years that he'd spent with his biological mother, he couldn't ever remember her dating anyone the way that Sharon was dating Andy. No man had ever treated her with the kind of respect that Andy treated Sharon. No man had ever shown up at her door with lavender roses because purple was her favorite color. And certainly, no man had ever taken her out for a night on the town and then gone home without getting the one thing he'd come to believe every man wanted…to get laid. When his mother met a guy there were no traditional tokens of affection, no dates, it was straight into bed.

And then, just as he'd grown a little bit more comfortable, things changed yet again. Not too long after Andy's surgery on the clot had healed enough for him to be able to move back into his home in Valencia, he had taken Sharon away down to Orange County for a weekend at the beach. He wasn't a dumb kid. He knew what that meant, but he didn't dwell on it. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. But when she came home from that weekend, she had approached him with a conversation regarding "overnight guests to the condo". After clarifying that she was not referring to _him_ having overnight guests, it hit him like a ton of bricks. She meant that Andy might start spending the night…in _her_ bedroom this time. Once the initial shock wore off he told her he was happy for her, as she said he should be, but he'd still felt conflicted about it. He liked Andy, and of course, he wanted his mother to be happy. But…just the idea of them doing _that_ made him shudder. Not so strange, Dr. Joe had later explained, "No child ever thinks of their mother as a sexual being and it certainly isn't easy coming face to face with the man she is having sex with. Watching a parent fall in love is quite a strange phenomenon that with divorce rates being what they are, more and more kids are having to come to terms with."

But it was more than that for him, and he couldn't put his finger on why he felt the way that he did. Not until the day that he came home early because he'd had a fight with TJ after having told Sharon he would be out late.

He walked in the door, his mind still on the fight, when he heard a soft, low moan come from the direction of his mother's bedroom. He paused for a moment, not sure what he'd heard. Then he heard it again, this time with an added sharp cry of pain. The door was wide open to the hall so he had no problem hearing her. With a surge of panic, he started to rush forward, sure that she was injured, but just as he reached the doorway, a deep, harsh male groan brought him up short and he froze. Then he heard it, the telltale thumping of her padded headboard against the wall, the low creaking of the bed and the soft sighs of _"Andy…Andy…Andy…"_ telling him everything he had to know about what was going on in that room. Mortified, he stormed off toward his own bedroom, the shout of Sharon's name seeming to reverberate throughout the condo. It was that last cry of completion that caused him to slam the door to his room harder than he'd intended.

He threw himself on his bed fighting waves of nausea, his fists clenched at his sides. He wasn't sure why he was reacting this way. His biological mother had slept with dozens of men, even prostituting herself when times were lean. He'd learned to live with it. But dammit, this was different. This was _Sharon._ His adopted mother was as different as day and night from his biological mother. And he needed it to be that way.

A few minutes later, his mother knocked on his door and entered his room wearing a short silk bathrobe he'd never seen before. Something a woman would wear for a man. Her skin was flushed and he could swear he could smell Andy on her. His stomach roiled. That smell still lived in his nightmares.

"You're home early," she said, sitting on the edge of his bed. He grunted. She brushed a lock of hair back from his face and he flinched. She sighed.

"I'm assuming given the way you slammed your door that you heard us when you got home."

"I don't want to talk about it." He rolled away.

"Well, I think we need to talk about it. I did warn you that Andy might start spending the night here once in a while."

"Spending the night is a little different than having to listen to porn." He felt her tense, saw the little flicker of hurt in her eyes and wished he could take back what he'd just said.

Sharon took a deep breath, trying to regulate her temper. "Look, Rusty, I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you had to hear that. If we'd known you were going to be home early, of course, we would have been more discreet. But this is my home and if I want to have Andy stay over; I will. What you heard was not porn it was lovemaking. There's a difference."

He gave a derisive snort and rolled his eyes. "Sure there is."

"Look, I know it had to be awkward to hear us that way, but why is this bothering you so much? Why are you so upset?" She set a hand on his shoulder and he sat up his eyes flashing with anger.

"I guess I just thought you were above all that, okay."

She flinched, her brow creasing with confusion. "Above it? What do you mean by that? You think I'm not human?"

Rusty shrugged. "What am I supposed to think? For all the years that I've lived with you, you never had a boyfriend until Andy. You didn't even let your husband sleep with you when he stayed here."

"Because we were legally separated and that part of our relationship had been over for a very, very long time."

"That's what I'm saying. You didn't need any guy that way. You just always seem so perfect."

"Oh my God, honey. I am so not perfect. You're right, in the past few years, I haven't had any men in my life until Andy. But I am not a saint. I am not a nun. I am a woman. I have needs like any other woman, any other human being."

He grimaced. "Can we please stop using the word 'needs'?"

Her lips pursed in an effort to conceal her amusement. "Fine. But I need you to know that I am not perfect, not by any means. Do not put me on a pedestal."

"A pedestal?"

"Yes. Because you know what happens when you put people on pedestals?"

He shook his head negatively.

"It deprives them of their humanness. It keeps you from seeing them clearly. I have imperfections and flaws. I have challenges and struggles. I have insecurities. And, yes, I'm sorry to say, I have needs. And when you think a person doesn't have those human qualities, when you think they are above that, it's dangerous. Because now you've created a standard of perfection that no one can live up to and that can only lead to disappointment. The way you're feeling right now. And that isn't fair to me, because I have never claimed to be perfect."

The anger left Rusty's eyes. "I guess I just never see you that way. You always seem to have everything so together. You always seem to know what to do and what to say."

"Well, maybe it seems that way. But I have made plenty of mistakes, dear child, and there are times I don't exactly know what to do or what to say. This is one of them. I'm sorry if hearing Andy and me embarrassed you."

He shrugged again. "It's nothing I haven't heard before. But, Sharon," he sat up drawing his knees into his chest. "I don't get it. You have this great condo, you have a lot of money, a car, you can buy whatever you want, you're okay on your own. What do you get out of it?"

She quirked her head to the side, confusion again creasing her brow. "What do I get out of it? I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, you don't have to do it."

My God, was that really what he thought? "Sex? You're talking about sex?"

He nodded and her face softened with sympathy.

"Oh, honey. Sex should never be about doing something you don't want to do just to get something in return. It's not a transaction, or at least it shouldn't be."

He stared at her blandly. He knew he was seriously screwed up when it came to sex. But the one thing he'd always been sure of was that it was all about quid pro quo, a transaction, as Sharon said. His mother used sex to make money for food and drugs; she used sex as a way to put a roof over their heads by finding a man with an apartment and ingratiating her way into staying with him. She used sex to keep those same men from throwing them out on the street and to keep them from beating her. At the time, it had sickened him and he hated those guys. But then he'd gone and done the very same thing. He'd sold his body to survive, for food and shelter. And every time he did it, he hated himself more and more. Hated them. Hated their dark, dirty needs. Hated the sounds they made and the smells they left on him. He hated them because they had stolen his childhood, his self-worth and had turned the act of sex into something dark, shameful and degrading.

Sharon continued on gently, "I know that what you went through on the streets has probably warped your views on sexuality but-"

"Mom, I really don't want to talk about this with you, especially after you've…well," he gestured toward her attire.

"I know discussing sex with a parent is uncomfortable, I get that. I've been through it with your sister and brother. But I want to make sure that you know there is nothing wrong with having sexual needs. All people have them, it's part of being human. It's the way people act upon those needs that can twist and pervert them into something ugly and painful"

His chest tightened at the flicker of pain in her eyes, evidence that she too had experienced a darker side to sex.

"Sex, at its best, is not a transactional act. It's something to be shared, a need to express your love in a physical way, a desire to give your partner pleasure and to accept the pleasure they want to give you in return. Really it's about sharing the most intimate part of you." A flush of embarrassment stained Rusty's cheeks, but Sharon continued on because she was pretty sure this was a conversation he'd never had before and it was important that he understand.

"I don't sleep with Andy because I feel like I _have_ to be with him that way. I'm with Andy because I want to be. And, I know you may think this sounds corny or old-fashioned, but there really is a difference between sex and making love and one day I hope you will have that experience."

And so, with that, Andy began spending more and more nights at the condo. Rusty grew used to seeing him come out of Sharon's bedroom, sometimes in just his boxers, and even seeing him in her bed. It had been quite jarring the first time he'd knocked on their bedroom door, was told to "come in", and Andy was lying there in bed, Sharon's head resting sleepily on his bare chest. But now it just seemed normal.

Then, one night during supper, they'd tossed him another curveball. Andy was looking to sell his house in Valencia to find a place closer to theirs in Los Feliz. Okay, no big deal about that. But then, all of a sudden they were talking about moving in together and buying a house together. In an instant, he was that little boy again, sitting on the outside, ignored and forgotten while his mother focused on her new man.

Things had simply never gone well for him when Sharon Beck brought a man into their life. Each time she hooked up with a new guy she would get so wrapped up in him it was like she forgot she even had a son. One day after she'd moved them in with her latest boyfriend, just to see if she'd notice, he disappeared for two full days. He thought for sure she'd be frantic with worry and would cover him with hugs and kisses when he returned. But when he walked through the door, she hadn't blinked an eye…because she hadn't even known he was missing. Had simply assumed he'd been up and off to school each morning. He was 9 years old at the time.

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, because the men his mother hooked up with were usually drug addicts or drug dealers, or sometimes pimps, they were almost always violent. They treated her like dirt and treated him even worse. They beat her and they beat him, and no matter how awful things got she always took their side. And in the end, when Gary the dirtbag got sick of having him around and told her to dump him at the zoo, she had done just that. Nothing in his life would ever hurt more than that betrayal.

Of course he knew that Sharon Raydor was not Sharon Beck, not by a long shot. But when she'd come to him and said Andy was moving in, all those old feelings had resurfaced, flooding through him in a series of waves. As much as he knew that Andy wasn't Gary, that he wasn't going to suddenly start knocking him around and that his mother wasn't going to get so fixated on Andy she'd forget about him, it was hard to let go of those old feelings. And if he were really examining his emotions, as Dr. Joe made him do, there was something else he was feeling, something Joe told him was a little more expected.

Jealousy.

For four years he'd pretty much had Sharon all to himself. Sure, she had Emily and Ricky and he'd had to work through some of that jealousy when they came home for visits, but they didn't live close enough to be an everyday presence. And, sure, she had friends that she spent time with, but for the most part, until Andy, her life had pretty much revolved around work and him, especially during the time when his life was being threatened. In the beginning, he'd chafed over what he'd considered her helicopter parenting. For as long as he could remember he'd done whatever he wanted, when he wanted, and hadn't had to answer to anyone.

But now, it was different. He liked having a mother who loved and worried about him. Though he wouldn't admit it to her, it made him feel all warm inside when she immediately placed a hand on his forehead to check his temperature when he said he wasn't feeling well, or asked what time he was coming home when he went out then checked on him to make sure he'd returned safe and sound, because for the first time in his life he had someone who really cared about him. And he was afraid of losing that.

Because now there was Andy. Andy was part of the decisions she made. That had never been more apparent than when she'd turned down what could have been a dream job for her, head of security for the NFL because it would take away from the time she could spend with Andy and possibly put a strain on their relationship. He had become such a big part of her life, their life; there was no getting around that. And while it hadn't been an easy transition, he'd successfully navigated through it all and, before too long he'd come to realize that having Andy around wasn't so bad after all, even if he did hog the TV watching ESPN every night. His moving in, once Rusty had come to terms with it, had been a good thing in many ways. Now that his mother had a partner, and they were off doing things together, it took some of the focus off him, gave him greater freedom. And, unlike the way his biological mother had brought men into their lives, Sharon, and to be fair, Andy, had both gone out of their way to make sure that everything went along as it normally had and that he still felt included in their lives. It had been a bit awkward at first. At times he felt like a third wheel, unsure if they really wanted him around or if he was in the way. But they kept extending him invitations; to eat meals with them, to watch TV with them, to go out to a movie with them. And Andy played chess and video games with him while his mother still made his favorite meals and worried about him when he was having a bad day. It felt an awful lot like he was finally part of a traditional family.

But when Andy found a house up in the Hollywood Hills that he thought Sharon might like, the old fears had rushed through him. Was he in the way? Was he cramping their burgeoning relationship? Would Andy want him gone so he could have Sharon all to himself? He couldn't help but wonder if maybe they'd like their own place, a place where they wouldn't have to worry about him walking in while they were making out on the couch or to have to be quiet when they were doing….other things. He'd expressed some of those fears to Buzz, well, everything but the sexy stuff, and Buzz had told him to get it all out there with Andy. So, he did. Andy had quickly and forcefully, disabused him of such notions, even chuckling over the idea of what Sharon would do to him if she ever thought he was trying to find a way to get rid of her child. Then, Andy had suggested that he join them to look at the house so they could decide as a family if the house was right for them or not.

 _A family._

That day had been a changing point. From then on, he'd started to view Andy, not as an interloper, not as the man stealing his mother's attention, not as the man his mother was sleeping with, but instead, as the man his mother loved and with whom she was sharing her life. A man who had become important to him as well. Andy was someone he could turn to for advice. An ally who was willing to help him navigate through the minefields when his mother was set against something he wanted, and who, conversely, wasn't afraid to tell him to back off when he felt he was pushing her too hard. He was also an honest, but caring source of information about addiction when it came to his biological mother.

Somehow, over time, Andy had become his father figure, and that bond seemed to grow stronger every day. He didn't trust many people, but Andy had proven himself trustworthy. And when it came to him as a partner for his mother, Rusty no longer had any reservations. Andy loved his mother, he respected her, and there was no denying that he made her happy. Since he'd come into her life she was so much more light-hearted, she laughed more, she teased more and she was far more relaxed. He liked seeing her that way.

So, by the time Andy came to him hoping for his blessing in asking Sharon to marry him, there had been no hesitance at all in his response. His rather exuberant yes had been a no brainer. Maybe it was because he knew Andy so much better now, or, maybe it was because he was getting more mature, but whatever the reason, none of those old feelings of insecurity had resurfaced when they announced they were indeed getting married. This time there were no red flags warning him of possible disasters, nothing to mar the surprising content he felt over their relationship becoming official and permanent.

"Earth to Rusty?"

Dr. Joe's amused voice yanked Rusty out of his trip down memory lane. "Uh, what?"

"I was saying that it wasn't all that long ago that you had reservations about your mother and Andy."

"Maybe it wasn't that long ago, but it feels like it was. I can honestly say that I am happy about this marriage. For them. And maybe even for me. "

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Hey everyone, I know it's been ages since I have posted. Honestly, there is so much negativity in the world right now, the idea of actually inviting that negativity into my life was something that was starting to feel a little masochistic. It was something that ceased to be fun, and let's remember, fanfic is supposed to be fun, no one is getting paid for this. Thank you to all the fanfic writers who continue to put themselves out there. Know that there are so many of us who do appreciate your work. I also want to thank mksc77 for both your pep talks and for your help with the chapter. As always, all mistakes are my own.

* * *

"Hey, hon." Andy paused in buttoning his shirt at the greeting, his lips curving into a smile when he took in Sharon's disheveled appearance as she entered their bedroom, fresh from a workout, spandex shorts clinging to her long toned thighs, loose tendrils of hair slipping out of her high ponytail.

"How was the Barre class?" He asked.

"It wasn't Barre. It was Spin." Over the past few months, Amy had convinced her to start taking spin classes with her, adding to her usual regimen of Body Barre, Pilates, and Yoga.

"Well, how was Spin?"

"Ugh." She pulled the sweaty racerback tank over her head. "Jelly legs."

"Gorgeous legs," he corrected.

"Yes, well, that takes work, darling." Though she ate healthily, for the most part, was supple, naturally active, and thanks to genetics and a great metabolism, didn't have to fight hard to maintain her slender figure, she exercised to keep toned and fit. In addition to the classes she attended when her schedule allowed, she swam laps almost every day, did some light weights at the PD gym, and also got out to Malibu to a riding stable as often as she could. When she first mentioned her horseback riding to Andy as a full-body workout, he gave her a typical Andy quip, "for the horse, right? " She'd ignored the comment until she could prove her point. One afternoon she'd taken him on what he referred to as a "ball crushing" ride, and he'd sheepishly eaten his words. Later still, when they'd become intimate and he'd felt those "thighs of steel" around his waist, he'd come to an even greater appreciation of that "full-body" exercise.

"Well, I'm pretty gross right now, so I'm going to hop in the shower." She pulled off her sports bra and wiped at the sweat under her breasts before dropping it in the hamper and disappearing into the bathroom. When she emerged 15 minutes later, she had one towel wrapped around her torso, the other turban-style around her head.

"Don't forget, I have book club tonight," she said.

"Yeah, I'm gonna hit a meeting."

She glanced up sharply from her dresser, a pair of rose-colored panties dangling from her fingertips. "Everything okay?"

Though her tone remained neutral, Andy picked up the tiny inflection of worry. It wasn't his usual meeting night. "Yeah, everything's fine," he assured her. "I had to skip last week because of our case, and I haven't gotten the chance to talk to Isaac."

"About us?"

"Yes."

Once in her fresh panties, Sharon shimmied on a pair of black leggings that she paired with a long, slouchy v-neck cashmere sweater in a soft shade of blush. To finish off the casual outfit, she slipped on a pair of two-tone quilted Chanel ballet flats, big silver hoop earrings, and a silver cuff bracelet. Andy continued to watch her dress. Watching her shed her professional persona for her personal one was kind of a ritual for him. At work, she was all fitted, classic, sleek lines. Understated and sophisticated. At home, her wardrobe was softer and a little more eclectic. Even her jewelry was different. At work, simple diamond studs in her ears and her watch, no bracelets, no necklaces, no dangling earrings. At home, she often wore pretty bracelets, hoops or dangling earrings, and a variety of necklaces, including the crucifix she never wore to work. Separation of church and state and all. He asked her once why she stopped wearing necklaces when she took over Major Crimes. After expressing surprise that he had actually noticed that, she told him that Brenda had warned her that wearing a necklace when interviewing suspects was dangerous because they could use it to try to strangle her. Given the violent animosity their former Chief seemed to bring out in suspects, he figured she was speaking from experience. Probably a good idea that he wore his sobriety necklace tucked in under his shirt. He was pretty sure there were hundreds of suspects over the years who would have loved nothing more than to strangle him.

A half-hour later, with her hair blown dry and her make up re-applied, Sharon came out of the bedroom to see Andy slipping on his jean jacket as he prepared to head out. Rusty was sitting on the couch on his laptop.

"You boys are on your own for supper tonight," she reminded the two.

"Okay. " Rusty glanced up. "What do you want to do, Andy?"

"I have a meeting, so I thought I could pick something up for us on my way home. Want a pizza from Palermo's?"

"Just make sure my half isn't loaded down with veggies."

Andy rolled his eyes. "No veggies. Got it."

Sharon smiled and started to reach for the Trader Joes bag she'd left on the table.

"I've got that, babe." Andy took the heavy bag and followed her out the door. Not so long ago, she might have bristled at the move and argued that she could carry the bag herself, but Andy knew that. It was simply a gentlemanly act of kindness, and she no longer looked for any sort of underlying misogynistic meaning to his kind gestures.

* * *

The strong smell of flowers hit Sharon just outside the storefront, and she glanced up at the pretty awning hanging over the doorway. "Lotions and Potions," her friend Summer's bath and body shop in Mar Vista. She opened the door, and the floral and spicy scents grew more pronounced. Taking a few steps in, she scanned the room, looking past the displays of soaps, bath salts, body creams, and lotions to see Summer with a customer over in the incense and essential oil section. The little bell that jangled at her entry drew Summer's attention, and when she glanced over and saw who it was, she gave Sharon a smile and a hand gesture indicating that she would be with her in a minute. Sharon nodded and began browsing, lifting and examining the vintage apothecary jars Summer used to carry her product. The old-fashioned jars and antique-looking sepia labels with their intricate designs and calligraphy lettering harkened back to another era as if she was stepping back in time.

Several years ago, this had been a New Age jewelry and clothing store where Summer worked as a clerk. Summer fit right in with today's millenials, often flitting from job to job, but for as long as Sharon had known her, she grew herbs and made homemade soaps and lotions in her house, selling her creations on the weekends at craft fairs and farmer's markets. Then Anabel, the storeowner, allowed her to put a few samples out for sale at the store, and they were a big hit. Soon she had a whole product line for sale. When Anabel decided to sell the store, the first person she approached was Summer, which had taken Summer completely by surprise. She was an artist, after all, not a businesswoman. I mean sure, she practically managed the store, but what did she know about running a business? At least that's what she said to Sharon when they were talking out the pros and cons. It was a moot point, anyway. Summer didn't have the kind of money needed to start a business.

But Sharon did. When her grandparents died, she was bequeathed quite a large inheritance. Some of the money was in a trust, but she had more than enough to lend Summer for the start-up costs. Summer hadn't seen it that way. It had been a battle royal for Sharon to get her best friend to agree to the loan. The very idea of it terrified Summer. What if she didn't succeed? What if she couldn't pay Sharon back? Sharon had gone through hell digging out of the mess Jack created for her financially, and she didn't want to see her have to deal with anything like that again. And most of all, she didn't want the money coming between them. Their friendship was too important. But Sharon prevailed. They worked it all out, with Sharon as an investor, and then they worked together to make Summer's vision become a reality.

The quirky little store was a reflection of its quirky little owner, and it was a hit. Situated only a few miles from both Venice Beach and Santa Monica, it drew in both the unconventional crowd and the well-to-do. Summer paid Sharon back several years ago, but Sharon still took pride in all that she had helped her friend accomplish here.

Grabbing a bottle of her favorite vanilla/jasmine body cream, Sharon glanced back around to see that Summer was still engrossed in conversation with her customer, her light brown curls bouncing on her shoulders with every enthusiastic nod of her head. Rather than stand around waiting, she decided to make her way to Summer's office in the back of the store. She pushed aside the beads that hung in the doorway, in lieu of an actual door, giving a loud sigh at the chaos. As usual, Summer's desk was filled with clutter: folders, papers, coffee mugs, and a bunch of opened boxes. No way could she ever work surrounded by such a mess. In fact, she could already feel the prickles of anxiety at the very idea. She started to move things around to make a spot to set her bag down when an item in one of the boxes caught her eye. Reaching in, she pulled it out, eyes widening with both surprise and curiosity.

"Find anything you like?"

Sharon jumped, nearly dropping the glass object. "Dammit, Summer! "

Summer's wide grin grew even wider. "Gotcha. Either you're losing your cop instincts, or that object holds more than a little interest for you."

"What is it?"

"If I have to tell you, Andy has a real problem."

Sharon flushed. "I know what it is; I just mean why do you have boxes of this stuff?"

"That stuff, as you call it, is luxury personal care products. "

One elegant brow rose skeptically. "Luxury? They're…"

"Glass dildos."

"And again, you have boxes of these, why?"

"I had a distributor come in for a meeting today. She wants me to try selling her line here."

"You're going to sell sex toys? _Here_? At Lotions and Potions?" Sharon looked so appalled that Summer had to giggle.

"No, I am _possibly_ going to sell _luxury_ personal care items. I told her I would think about it. It's a big and pretty lucrative business right now. Look at them, Sharon, they're works of art."

Sharon looked again at the item in her hand, eyeing it critically. Blown glass with swirls of color, graceful lines. She had to admit, it really did look like a piece of art.

"Much more attractive than the real thing. Am I right?"

Sharon gave a little snort-laugh. "Oh my God, you're right. It is. Though we better not let the guys hear us say that."

"God, no. Men do love their penises, don't they?"

"Mmm…" Sharon hummed affirmatively.

"Almost as much as they love our boobs."

Sharon shook her head with amused affection and another little snort-laugh. She never quite knew what was going to come out of Summer's mouth. In that respect, and in so many more, they were as different as night and day. Oil and water. Chalk and cheese.

Summer was as outgoing and irreverent as Sharon was private and respectful. As unconventional and flighty as Sharon was traditional and responsible. As loud and boisterous, as Sharon was soft-spoken and reserved.

Summer was thrift store boho gauzy tops, flowing skirts, Birkenstocks, and arms covered in bangle bracelets. Sharon was Neiman Marcus pencil skirts, Armani suits, killer heels, and diamond earrings. Summer lifted her arms in worship to the winter solstice while Sharon knelt in reverent prayer at midnight mass. Summer was homeschooling and a childhood spent on a commune. Sharon was private Catholic schools and summers on Nantucket. Summer was Stevie Nicks to Sharon's Grace Kelly.

And yet, they clicked. For 26 years, they had been best friends. From the day that Sharon and Jack moved into their new home in Mar Vista and a bossy little child knocked on their door stating, "I'm five. Do you have any little girls my age I can play with?" With baby Ricky on her hip, Sharon smiled at the little ragamuffin with Popsicle lips and a mop of brown curls and then introduced her to a bashful four-year-old Emily. Within seconds, a harried woman in a tank top and an Indian wrap skirt straight out of the 1970s followed. Since she shared the same wild head of curls with the little moppet now dragging Emily along by the hand, Sharon assumed she was her mother. Indeed, the woman said she was looking for her daughter and, like Sharon, she too had a diapered little boy resting against her shoulder. Sharon introduced herself then invited the gypsy looking woman in for a cup of coffee. It was the beginning of three very important friendships: Sharon and Summer, Emily and Jade, and Ricky and Cody.

Despite their differences in background, personality, and temperament, the two young women easily found common ground. Their kids were the same age, they both loved the arts, and they were both in difficult marriages. Their bond was quick and strong. They spent their days off from work building sandcastles with their kids at the beach, pushing swings at the park, or attending children's reading circles at the library. They babysat for each other, swapped books, and on those rare occasions when they had time for themselves, browsed through art galleries, bookstores, and museums together. Most importantly, since neither had extended family in Los Angeles, they created a much-needed support system for each other. And that was something that became increasingly important, because, within a few years, they were both on their own. Single parents.

Summer came across as flaky, but she was everything Sharon needed in a friend: supportive, warm, honest, and a strong shoulder to cry on-one of a very select group of people whom Sharon allowed to see her vulnerability. They had journeyed together through all the difficulties and heartaches life threw at them, helping each other raise their children, bucking each other up when things seemed bleak, and sharing in each other's joy as they each found success in their professions and new love. From breast-feeding to hot flashes, they had seen each other through it all.

"So, " Summer continued. "Go ahead and take whatever you like. I know you're not a prude. Try one out and let me know what you think."

"I'm good." Sharon placed the item back in the box with a little quirk of her lips. "I've got the real thing now."

"Yeah, well what about these? Could be fun." Summer dangled a pair of handcuffs.

"Again, I've got the real thing."

"Pfff… Those things would hurt. These are love cuffs. Nice and soft. See." Sharon admired the plush cuffs Summer thrust in her face, faux fur with little tiny bows, definitely not standard LAPD gear, but shook her head negatively. "I'm all set." She glanced down at her watch. "Come on, Sum. We really have to get going or we're going to be late."

 _"Oh, no,_ we wouldn't want to be late."

Sharon rolled her eyes, ignoring the sarcasm. Fate had surrounded her with smart asses. "No, we wouldn't. So, let's go."

"Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a wad. Just promise me you'll think about it."

Sharon blew out a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, I'll think about it, now let's go."

* * *

Sitting in the back corner of the bookstore, Sharon found herself center stage, surrounded by a group of women gushing with excitement over the diamond on her finger, grabbing her hand to look at it and pumping her for all the details of the proposal.

"It's so beautiful, Sharon. " Aggie's eyes went dreamy, her hands in a prayer triangle under her chin, lost in the fairytale of Sharon's proposal. "And how romantic. I can just picture it…A winter wonderland. A romantic sleigh ride through the woods and Andy down on one knee professing his undying love for you-" She broke off, swiftly coming back to reality when everyone burst into laughter. "What?" She defended herself. "I love romance."

"As if we didn't know," Marina scoffed. Whenever it was Aggie's turn to pick their monthly book, it was invariably a romance of some sort.

"Hey, I thought Russians were supposed to have romantic souls." Aggie's protest was made in the soft New Orleans drawl she hadn't lost despite having lived in LA for the past 20 years.

"I had one of those…Four husbands ago." Marina, a ballerina, had defected to the United States in the late seventies and had later opened a ballet studio in LA after retiring from the stage. Sharon met her when she signed Emily up for lessons at her studio after her young daughter had become more serious about studying dance and outgrown her instructor. It was Marina who had seen the talent and drive in Emily and helped her become the principal ballerina she was today. Marina was also cynical and pragmatic and went through men, mostly younger men, the way Andy used to go through younger women.

"Don't listen to her," Sharon said. "You're right, Aggie, Andy couldn't have picked a more romantic way to propose. Hard to believe I found a man whose sense of occasion can actually rival mine. It's certainly a night I will never forget."

"I still can't believe Andy took Gavin to help pick out your ring and not me," Summer sulked. The room went silent, all the women turning to her with wide eyes before erupting in giggles. "What?" She held her hand's open palms up and shrugged in a "what the hell" gesture.

Rachel, a pretty blonde, responded. "Come on, Sum, when it comes to style, there is nobody, other than maybe Roz here, who is more opposite from Sharon than you."

"I'd take exception to that if it weren't 100% true," was Roz's good-natured response. A writer for a comedy sitcom, Roz was notoriously sloppy in her dress, preferring the sweatpants, t-shirts and Converse sneakers she was wearing right now to any other attire. When she was forced to wear something nice, she chose boxy male suits and would never be caught dead in a "girlie" skirt or dress.

"I don't think we're that opposite." Summer's protest drew more peals of laughter.

"Summer…" Rachel lifted her friend's skirt, smirking when she exposed plastic clogs. "You are wearing _Crocs_. Need I say more?"

"There's nothing wrong with Crocs. They're comfortable." Summer pushed her skirt back over her shoes.

"No offense, I love you to pieces, but they're fugly and Sharon wouldn't be caught dead out in public in them." With her sleek dark blonde bob and stylish clothes, Rachel Garner had far more in common when shopping with Sharon than Summer. Like Andrea, Rachel was a lawyer, now an advisor to Mayor Garcetti. She and Sharon had become friends back when Sharon was promoted to the LAPD's Women's Coordinator position and they had worked together on numerous cases.

"What I don't understand is why you want to get married in the first place. I mean you just got out of a bad marriage, why jump right back in?" The room went silent, this time with tension, not humor. Roz sat back, arms crossed over her chest, seemingly unconcerned by the group's collective disapproval.

"What the hell are you talking about?" It was Summer who quickly jumped to Sharon's defense. "Just out of a bad marriage? She's been done with that ungrateful, immature, disloyal prick for 23 freaking years! Just because she only formally divorced him a couple of years ago doesn't mean-"

"Summer," Sharon tugged on her friend's arm. "It's okay, calm down."

"It's not okay; she has no right to say that. _You_ ," she pointed a finger at Roz, "have no idea what she went through. You've known her for what? Four years? You have no right to question her choices. And just because you hate men doesn't mean she has to feel the same."

"Okay, okay, whoa. I didn't mean to start World War III." Roz held her hands up in defeat. "And for the record, I don't hate men. Well, all men anyway. I'm just saying, she doesn't need a man…a husband."

"Roz is right." Sharon agreed, taking a sip of her wine.

"What?" Summer turned to her with confusion.

"She's right. I don't need a man. But I can want one without needing him. And you know what? That makes this the purest relationship I have ever been in, ever. I don't need Andy's money, I don't need his security, I don't need his protection, I don't need him to provide shelter for me, I'm not looking for a father for my children. I am with Andy for one reason only. I love him. It's as easy and as simple as that. I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him. And yes, I want the formal commitment of marriage. I know I don't need it, but I want it. And that's _my_ choice." She tapped her fingers on her chest, stressing the point. "I am at a place in my life right now where I can do what I _want_ to do, not what I _need_ to do, and you have no idea how much freedom there is in that for me."

"And we're thrilled for you." Summer's narrowed eyes shot daggers at Roz, causing Sharon to suppress a smile. Summer was about as laid back a person as she knew, however, one thing they did have in common was that you didn't mess with the people they love.

"Yes, we are." Patrice set a gentle hand on Sharon's knee. "Andy is a great guy, and he loves you to the moon and back." As Andy's caregiver while he was recovering from his surgery, Patrice had gotten to know the man and the way he felt about Sharon better than any of them.

Andrea nodded in agreement. "You all know how I feel about marriage, but hell, if I had a guy who looked at me the way Flynn looks at Sharon, who knows?"

Aggie, who had gone off to pilfer through the shelves, returned and flopped down in an oversized chair. She opened the small book she'd been looking for and began reading. "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

"That's C.S Lewis, isn't it? " Sharon recognized the passage from having read a lot of Lewis's work.

Aggie nodded. "From The Four Loves."

"Well, he sums it up rather nicely, doesn't he? " Sharon poured a little more wine in her glass, then sat back. "Loving someone is a risk, no doubt about it, but I will always believe that it is a risk worth taking." She was well aware of how easy it would have been to encase her heart in one of those caskets after Jack, to allow herself to become unreachable. But that just wasn't in her DNA. Barriers, yes, she had certainly erected some of those, but closed off completely? No. She simply had too much love inside her to shut down like that. She knew people often thought she was cold, aloof, unemotional. They never knew it was all a façade, a shield meant to hide the fact that she actually felt things very deeply. She'd had to learn how to contain those emotions, to hide her feelings, but they were there, they were always there. And, had she entombed her heart, she never would have been able to let Rusty in, nor been able to embrace the man who had become the love of her life. Vulnerable? Yes, love made you vulnerable, but the rewards far outweighed any risk.

"I agree, we all need to remain open to love. Now, who's hungry?" Helen, the owner of the bookstore, set to restore order to their opinionated little group. "We'll eat, then dive into the book."

Sharon shot the older woman a grateful look. They might all be friends, but she had never really been comfortable with people dissecting her life.

The food was potluck. Each member of the club took a turn hosting the meeting, but it was always potluck so no one was stuck having to feed the whole group. At the end of each meeting, they drew out of a hat to see if they would be bringing the beverages, an appetizer, or an entrée to the next meeting. Though it wasn't a rule, they often tried to base whatever food they brought on the setting of their book. The only part of the meal they did not draw for was dessert. Mary Agnes Boudreaux McCormack, Aggie, always brought dessert. Twenty years ago, Aggie had moved to Los Angeles after Craig McCormack walked into her bakery in New Orleans and swept the 37-year-old widow off her feet, taking her home with him to California. Aggie opened a pretty little bed and breakfast near Venice Beach and brought with her the French and Creole delicacies of her former home, including the to-die-for beignets she brought to each meeting, regardless of the setting. No one was willing to forgo those beignets.

This month's book was set in Mexico, so there were cheesy nachos with garlic guacamole, sweet potato and black bean taquitos, a creamy taco soup, Mexican chicken and rice, and fish tacos. Sharon had drawn beverages at their last meeting, so, along with a case of seltzer water, she'd brought a few bottles of a Baja Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend along with the makings for Mojitos.

"And these," she drew out two large bottles of champagne. "Because we can't celebrate 10 years without a little bubbly. I still can't believe we've been doing this for 10 years." She poured the champagne and passed the glasses around to the ten incredible women sprawled over the sitting area. Ranging in age from their late forties to early sixties, with most in their fifties like Sharon, black, white, and mixed heritage, native Californians and transplants, gay and straight, single and married, they were a diverse group who had come together to bond over a shared love of books. And somewhere along the way, they had become friends. Friends that had seen each other through infidelity, divorce, infertility, empty nests, cancer, adoptions, menopause, job losses, promotions, and new loves gained and lost.

The book club had come about rather organically not long after Helen and her business partner, Jenny, opened "The Book Nook", a combination bookstore/café a little over 10 years ago. Helen's husband, Christopher, had accepted the position of visiting professor at USC, and the British couple fell in love with the climate and laid back lifestyle of Southern California. So, when a permanent position became available, they decided to leave the gray skies and rain of England behind and settle in the land of sunshine and surfers. At the time, Jenny was a stay at home mom whose marriage had fallen apart after her battle with breast cancer. Divorced, her children in college, and cancer-free, she was ready to embrace a new life when Helen became a patron of the coffeehouse where she was working as a barista. Soon they were discussing a joint venture. A few years later, their bookstore/cafe became reality, and Sharon, Summer, and Rachel became some of their first customers. Recommendations of authors and long chats over coffee regarding the books they read or were interested in reading had Jenny suggesting the idea of starting a book club.

For Sharon, it was perfect timing. Ricky had just gone off to Stanford, and with Emily across the country at NYU, she was reeling from the effects of her empty nest. For 21 years, her life had revolved around her children and their needs, car-pooling, cooking, laundry, helping with homework, getting them to practices, cheering them on at games and recitals, and most recently visiting college campuses in preparation for their futures. And then suddenly they were just…gone. The house was too quiet, too empty, too filled with memories. And, with her children gone, the fact that she did not have a love life only became more pronounced, her bed suddenly emptier, colder to the touch. And it didn't help that she was starting to feel like she was in a rut at the PSB. Melancholy enveloped her in its insidious web, eating away at her, telling her that her best days were now in the past.

Later, she would find that she actually enjoyed the peace and solitude of being on her own, the freedom of not having to organize anyone but herself. But in the beginning, the loneliness was crushing. Both Rachel and Summer commiserated with her because they were going through the same thing. It was Marina who encouraged her to use that time to focus on herself and do some of the things she'd wanted to do but hadn't had time for in the past.

For many years, Sharon had helped out a few nights a month at St. Joseph's soup kitchen, bringing Emily and Ricky along with her, which was how she'd gotten to know Aggie. Now, she began volunteering at the church's domestic violence shelter, counseling the women on their rights, teaching them how to defend themselves, and helping them to find jobs. She coached them through the interview process and helped them select outfits from donated clothes-including her own-that would help them look professional. Eventually, she ended up on the board of directors. She also became the LAPD's liaison with "The Sunshine Kids Foundation" helping kids with cancer, worked with Rachel to raise money for "Emily's List", sold her house and bought the condo, and then she joined the book club.

It was the perfect hobby and helped her to expand her group of friends. Other than Gavin, Summer, and Rachel, she didn't really have any close friends, confidantes. It wasn't that she was anti-social, she had many friendly acquaintances: Marina, Aggie, a few women and men at work. But, the truth was, she had never had the time to cultivate deep friendships. As a single mom, she was usually either working or taking care of her kids. And where most people made friends on the job, her work within the PSB made that impossible. Barriers were essential in her position, and that had not been easy, especially in the beginning. Even though she'd always been a bit reserved, she was not a naturally unfriendly person, so having to close off that side of her had taken time and effort. But she'd become good at it. Maybe too good. Once her walls were built, it was hard to let people back in.

The book club started out small, and though it had not been intentional, they were all women: Helen, Sharon, Summer, Rachel, Jenny, Marina, and Aggie. Roz, Patrice, and Andrea were later additions. Once the only women thing was established, they decided to keep it that way, which pleased Sharon. She was surrounded by men all day long, worked in a profession dominated by men, and she didn't have a problem with that. For the most part, she liked working with men, liked their direct ways, and had always felt that the best teams had a combination of women and men. On the other hand, it was nice to spend time with her women friends and immerse herself in the female perspective. It was also easier to be herself and let her hair down without the male/female dynamic, without feeling like she had to prove that she was tough enough, strong enough, smart enough, the way she did at work, every… single… day. Around these women, she could express her emotions, and frankly, her sexuality, without being embarrassed or viewed as weak.

"To ten years!" Helen raised her glass of champagne.

"To ten years!" The group chorused.

TBC


End file.
